Thurgood Marshall - Murder, Mystery and the Birth of the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund
On June 13,1967 Thurgood Marshall, one of the pre-eminent Black lawyers in the U.S., became the first Black American appointed to the Supreme Court. His 1951 defense of "The Groveland Boys", 4 black teenagers in FL accused of raping a white girl, was tried in the Supreme Court. Gilbert King's outstanding "The Devil in the Grove" recalls all the tension and danger of this nefarious era in Florida's Jim Crow history. Marshall went on to try the landmark Brown vs the Board of Education in 1963 and founded the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
Top Recommendation for June
The Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Birth of a New America, by Gilbert King (2013 - 464 pp)
In 1949 a young Thurgood Marshall waded into Florida's Jim Crow country to defend 4 Black teenagers accused of raping a white girl. A corrupt local sheriff and the KKK did not deter Marshall from seeking justice for these young men in a case he took to the Supreme Court.