44 pages • 1 hour read
Gilbert KingDevil in the Grove
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2012A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Prologue-Chapter 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Prologue Summary
We are introduced to the central figure of Thurgood Marshall, a Baltimore-born African American and grandson of slaves, who by the mid-1940s is a leader in the campaign to secure civil rights for blacks. Later, Marshall will argue far-reaching cases before the U.S. Supreme Court dealing with racial justice—among them Brown v. Board of Education. At the time of the book’s events, Marshall is a lawyer working for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in New York and defends blacks falsely accused of capital crimes in the South, where Jim Crow laws are in force and “white supremacy ruled” (2). There, vigilante justice often ends in lynching, a fact mourned by and publicized at NAACP headquarters.
As the book opens, Marshall is riding a train to Lake County, Florida, where he will handle the case of three young black men (the Groveland Boys) accused of raping a 17-year-old white girl named Norma Lee Padgett. The case will become a firestorm, inciting mob violence and bringing the National Guard to the community to restore order. Although seldom mentioned in histories, the Groveland case was a key event in Marshall’s career and the civil rights movement. Marshall will handle the case amid daily threats to his life, earning him the reputation of a “suicidal crusader” for justice (4). As a result of this and similar cases, Marshall will become a beloved figure of hope in black communities.
Chapter 1 Summary: “Mink Slide”
In 1946, a few years before the Groveland case, Marshall, along with his fellow NAACP lawyers, faces off in the courtroom against Tennessee District Attorney General Paul F. Bumpus. Marshall is defending 25 blacks accused of rioting and attempted murder of police in Columbia, Tennessee, a case publicized as the “first major racial confrontation following World War II” (8).
The trouble began when a black woman named Gladys Stephenson went into an appliance store in Columbia with her 19-year-old son James (a former navy boxer) to complain about shoddy repairs to her radio. The white, 28-year-old repairman picked a fight with James, who ended up wounding him. After a general melee broke out, both Stephensons were carted off to jail by the police. The incident inflamed the county, leading to a spate of racial violence and vandalism in Mink Slide (a black section of Columbia) and elsewhere.
At the trial, to everyone’s surprise, one defendant is acquitted and the other leaves free on bail. Having won the case, Marshall and his team of lawyers resolve to leave town quickly. While driving at night, they are followed and stopped by police on the pretext of drunk driving. The police hustle Marshall into a car and drive down an unpaved road—the same area that the notorious lynching of Cordie Cheek took place. Just as Marshall feared, he is being driven to his own lynching. However, one of his lawyer colleagues, Z. Alexander Looby, has followed the police car and confronts the patrolmen. Fearing another riot if word of the lynching gets out, the police return Marshall to Columbia. Marshall escapes town with Looby down back roads.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Sugar Hill”
After an unpleasant exchange with a white citizen on a train platform, Marshall boards the train back to New York. The remainder of the chapter describes Marshall’s life in Harlem, once the center of an African American cultural renaissance and still a vibrant social and cultural scene. We are introduced to Marshall’s wife, Vivian “Buster” Burey Marshall, whom Marshall married in 1936. They faced considerable hardship in their early married life, and Buster still longs to have children. Marshall eventually acquired sufficient capital and social status to move into the prestigious neighborhood of Sugar Hill, where many famous artists and intellectuals live.
In 1946 Marshall is awarded the Spingarn Medal, a prize for black achievement, for his efforts on behalf of civil rights. Meanwhile, Marshall’s personal habits—drinking, smoking, and overwork—lead to health problems, forcing him to be hospitalized at Harlem Hospital. He is diagnosed with a mysterious, pneumonia-like virus and spends a period of rest and recovery in the Virgin Islands.
Prologue-Chapter 2 Analysis
This section is a prelude of sorts to the book as a whole, presenting necessary background to the life of Thurgood Marshall and the Groveland case.
In the Prologue King establishes the pivotal nature of the case both in Marshall’s career and in the history of civil rights. It was an affair that Marshall talked about frequently for the rest of his life and was “key to Marshall’s perception of himself as a crusader for civil rights” (4). These sections also set up the stakes involved in civil rights cases in the Jim Crow South. Marshall and his fellow lawyers face racism, violence, and threats to their lives. They defend men society would rather see killed than exonerated, and these killings are often carried through.
Delving into Marshall’s career, Chapters 1-2 establish Marshall’s rise as a young lawyer and his subsequent acclaim. We enter the year 1946 when Marshall defends 25 blacks accused of rioting in Columbia, Tennessee—a case that is a significant precursor to Groveland. By his late thirties, Marshall is already a revered figure in the black community.
These chapters also provide a glimpse of Marshall’s personal life. His tense situation in Tennessee contrasts with his life in Harlem, New York. Marshall and his wife, Buster, enjoy a sometimes peaceful, sometimes tense relationship, exacerbated by Marshall’s frequent travel. At one point their marriage was described as “distant and lifeless” (41). Joined with this are Marshall’s health problems. Overwork with the NAACP, compounded by smoking and a poor diet, land him in the hospital. Fortunately for him and for the course of civil rights history, he will eventually overcome his health problems to continue his mission in Groveland and beyond.
