Accused Of Florida Rape 70 Years Ago, 4 Black Men Get Posthumous Pardons
The new governor said the arrests and trials, and in two cases the killings, of the Groveland Four were unjust. Families of the men had worked for the pardons. The accuser maintained she did not lie.
Seven decades after being accused of raping a white woman, four African-American men were posthumously pardoned on Friday by the state of Florida.
The pardons of Samuel Shepherd, Walter Irvin, Charles Greenlee and Ernest Thomas – known as the Groveland Four — follow a long, violent story that had become symbolic of racial injustice in the state, and in Jim Crow America.
