{"id":1740,"date":"2013-06-29T14:34:23","date_gmt":"2013-06-29T22:34:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=1740"},"modified":"2013-06-29T14:34:23","modified_gmt":"2013-06-29T22:34:23","slug":"review-devil-in-the-grove","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=1740","title":{"rendered":"Review: Devil In The Grove"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Gilbert King won the Pulitzer Prize for <em>Devil In The Grove<\/em>, and it&#8217;s easy to see why.\u00a0 This is a well written, meticulously researched history of a horrifying miscarriage of justice in a 1949 rape case.\u00a0 King collects a dizzying array of facts and testimony that make clear just how badly America treated its black citizens.\u00a0 It&#8217;s the kind of sobering history that makes you worry how much has changed.<\/p>\n<p>The case is cut and dried by any reasonable standard: several of the men convicted had never laid eyes on the woman they were alleged to have raped, all were beaten until they confessed (or it was clear they wouldn&#8217;t), the trials were all overshadowed by mob violence, and defense attorneys nearly lynched.\u00a0 When a new trial was ordered by the Supreme Court, the sheriff simply shot the two defendants on the way to the court house (one miraculously survived).\u00a0 No charges.<\/p>\n<p>King makes it clear that it was also cut and dried by the unreasonable standard of the day: a white person claimed rape by blacks, so they were guilty.\u00a0 A lot of the impact of <em>Grove<\/em> is how well King brings that standard home.\u00a0 The case was the kind of media circus that happens with alarming frequency today &#8211; as I write this the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Trayvon_Martin\">Trayvon Martin case<\/a> is the analog &#8211; but the lynchings and shootings were considered expected.<\/p>\n<p>Understanding central Florida&#8217;s history here makes people&#8217;s reaction to the modern case much clearer.<\/p>\n<p><em>Grove<\/em> is harrowing and essential reading.<\/p>\n<p>Strongly recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gilbert King won the Pulitzer Prize for Devil In The Grove, and it&#8217;s easy to see why.\u00a0 This is a well written, meticulously researched history of a horrifying miscarriage of justice in a 1949 rape case.\u00a0 King collects a dizzying array of facts and testimony that make clear just how badly America treated its black [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1740"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1744,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1740\/revisions\/1744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}