Source

State Archives of Florida, Series s235

Description

A report published in the New South on racial violence in Lake County, Florida. The report speculates on the roots of the violence beyond the Groveland rape case and offers commentary on law enforcement, public opinion, the Ku Klux Klan, and the administration of justice. The report mentions the Ocoee massacre as a motivating concern among Lake County residents and civic leaders.

Date

1949

Creator

Southern Regional Council

Format

Newspapers

Coverage

Postwar Florida (1945-1968)

Topic

Civil Rights and Freedoms

Subjects

Discrimination in criminal justice administration--Florida--Groveland
Domestic terrorism
Ervin, Richard William, 1905-2004
Florida. National Guard
Greenlee, Charles, 1933-2012
Groveland (Fla.)--Race relations
Groveland Four Trial (Groveland, Florida : 1949-1952)
Ku Klux Klan (1915- )
McCall, Willis V. (Willis Virgil), 1909-1994
Mobs
Ocoee Election Day Massacre (Ocoee, Florida : 1920)
Padgett, Norma
Padgett, Willie
Race relations--Press coverage

Geographic Term

Groveland
Lake County
Atlanta (Ga.)
Orange County
Mascotte
Stuckey's Still
Polk City
Tavares

General Note

On July 16, 1949, Norma Padgett, a 17-year-old white woman from Lake County, Florida, accused four black men of raping her and assaulting her husband after their car stalled on a rural road near the Groveland community. Three of the men Samuel Shepherd, Walter Irvin and Charles Greenlee were quickly apprehended. The fourth suspect, Ernest Thomas, fled the area but was later shot and killed by a sheriff's posse nearly 200 miles away in Madison County. A Lake County jury found Shepherd, Irvin and Greenlee guilty of rape. Shepherd and Irvin were sentenced to death; Greenlee was sentenced to life in prison, likely because of his age. Legal counsel from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) appealed the convictions of Irvin and Shepherd up to the United States Supreme Court, which overturned both convictions in 1950. Lake County officials were eager to retry the case, and in November 1951 Sheriff Willis Virgil McCall traveled to the Florida State Prison at Raiford to pick up Irvin and Shepherd. En route back to Lake County, McCall shot both men. Shepherd died of his wounds, but Irvin survived. Sheriff McCall claimed the two men had attacked him, despite the fact that they were handcuffed together in the backseat of the car. Irvin testified that Sheriff McCall had forced the two men from the car and then shot them both. Irvin was tried once again for rape and again found guilty. The United States Supreme Court declined to rehear the case in 1954, but stayed Irvin's execution just days before it was to take place. Governor LeRoy Collins examined the case and decided to commute Irvin's sentence to life imprisonment, asserting that his guilt had not been established in an absolute and conclusive manner. Greenlee was eventually released from prison on parole in 1960; Irvin was paroled in 1968. In 2017, the Florida Legislature passed a resolution officially apologizing for the handling of this case and calling for the four men to be pardoned. In 2019, Governor Ron DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet, sitting as the State Board of Executive Clemency, posthumously pardoned all four of the men originally accused in the case, with DeSantis calling their experiences with the judicial system a "miscarriage of justice."