The Groveland case involved a young white couple, Willie and Norma Padgett, who reported to the police that, in the predawn hours of July 16, 1949 while on their way home from a dance, their car stalled on the road after which four black men Irvin, Shepherd, Earnest and a teenager Charles Greenlee came to offer help to them. These couple claimed that, unfortunately the four men beat up and threw Willie out of the car as they drove away with Norma, a seventeen year old lady. Norma reported that she was gang raped by the four blacks. However, despite the fact that these men were supposed to receive justice through the right channels, due to the racial prejudice and harsh treatments of the blacks saw the white residents storm the jail seeking to give the arrested suspects instant justice after they had killed Earnest as he tried to escape. Two of the suspects were also killed and a story was fabricated that they were shot as they tried to escape. Despite facing stiff opposition, all along these cases, the NAACP was very instrumental in trying to seek fair justice for the black citizens. In this paper, I will seek to expound on the Groveland case so as to further explain the role and functions of external organisations such as the NAACP. I will argue this case using the thesis that, without these external African-American organisations, justice for the black citizens would not be upheld and respected.
One of the key roles of these organisations as revealed from the Groveland case is to eliminate racial hatred and discrimination while ensuring there is equality with regard to education, political, social and economic opportunities of the US citizens. In the context of the Groveland case, with the help of Thurgmood Marshall, the NAACP executive were able to attract nationwide attention and publicity for the case against the grove land boys. Driven by the desire to provide justice to the suspects who had already been sentenced to death without concrete evidence, Marshall took this case to the Supreme Court. Despite the numerous challenges that faced him and other NAACP lawyers, the book refers to him as a “suicidal crusader” due to the nature of the explosive cases that he used to handle together with the NAACP (King 13). Apart from fight for civil rights as it did in the case of the Groveland boys, NAACP and similar organisations it acts as the main organisation that mobilised the African Americans to register as voters, and through their efforts, more than double the previous number of coloured voters were registered in Florida during this period.
For over a century, the NAACP has continues to be the most renowned organisation that is mass-based for civil rights. Arguably, it is the only organisation that has repeatedly contributed to equality and justice in African-Americans since the advent of the 20th century. Throughout the book, the author, Gilbert King manages to periodically widen on the efforts of all the leaders of NAACP and how they ended up being assassinated. Heroic figures such as marshal and Harry Moore who was the executive secretary of NAACP at this period were very instrumental in fighting each day for the injustices that were surrounding the African-American communities in America. The author of this book writes that,
“there is not a Supreme Court justice who served with Marshall or a lawyer who clerked for him that did not hear his renditions, always colourfully told, of the Groveland story." (p11)
In addition, NAACP and other similar organisations have been observed to sponsor various youth campaigns aimed at preventing violence, encouraging the aspect of economic enterprise among coloured Americans, and also leading voter drives so as to ensure that there has been increased political participation among this group of the American citizens.
Works Cited
King, Gilbert. Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of
a New America. HarperCollins, 2012.
Malcolm, X. "Moore, Harry (I905-I95 I)." American Dissidents: An Encyclopaedia of
Activists, Subversives, and Prisoners of Conscience: An Encyclopaedia of Activists, Subversives, and Prisoners of Conscience (2011): 423.
