The Groveland Boys: Four Black Men Falsely Accused of Rape in Florida

In Groveland, Florida, four young Black men — Ernest Thomas, Charles Greenlee, Walter Irvin, and Samuel Shepherd — are accused of raping a white woman. Thomas is hunted down and killed. The other three are tortured into confessions. An all-white jury convicts them. Mobs burn Black homes in Groveland. Thurgood Marshall wins a Supreme Court reversal in 1951. Sheriff Willis McCall shoots Irvin and Shepherd while transporting them; Shepherd dies. Irvin survives and testifies McCall shot them in cold blood. McCall is not charged. The case is called 'Florida's Scottsboro.'