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.
Themes
Racism/Prejudice
Devil in the Grove is, from beginning to end, a story of racial prejudice in the South. King begins the book with a recollection of a trial Marshall argued in Columbia, Tennessee, defending a group of black townspeople accused of starting a riot. The prosecutor in the case, Paul Bumpus, assumes that the black men on the defense team are not his intellectual equals and is thus shocked when they defeat him. In two instances in the book, a black defense team is hounded by the KKK in automobiles after the trial. By contrast, the Florida assistant attorney general leaves the U.S. Supreme Court unmolested after the Groveland hearing. King notes, “No one was going to chase Assistant Attorney General of Florida Reeves Bowen out of the capital at ninety miles per hour, or drag him at gunpoint to a waiting mob along the banks of the Potomac” (218). This contrast highlights the glaring racial inequity that exists in the South.
We also see the ostensibly gentler racial prejudice of Mabel Norris Reese and Jesse Hunter. Reese is initially prejudiced in favor of the prosecution and expresses her views in her newspaper coverage of the case. When Charles Greenlee is given life imprisonment instead of the electric chair, Reese concludes that this was because of the convincing “performance” Greenlee gave in court. Later, however, Reese becomes certain of their innocence and repents her earlier hastiness in judging the defendants. She eventually becomes a friend of Martin Luther King and a supporter of the civil rights movement.
Hunter’s racial prejudice is shown from the start: When Akerman, Williams, and Horace Hill visit him in his office, Hunter mistakenly believes that Williams and Hill are the defendants. Williams later comments that “at one moment [Hunter] would have the most acerbic and bitter racist comment, and then the very next moment he would be the most pleasant good fellow, country lawyer you had ever met” (146). This better part of his nature wins out, as Hunter’s attitudes toward race change due to the Groveland case. He eventually petitions Governor Collins to pardon Irvin.
Scapegoating
During the Groveland case, reporters Richard Carter and Terence McCarthy discover that it is tied up with other factors such as the bolita racket and citrus labor. Carter explicitly asks whether the entire “rape” case was concocted to scapegoat two black men (Shepherd and Irvin) who aroused the white community’s jealousy and resentment and to get rid of another (Ernest Thomas) who was interfering in the bolita business. Further, McCarthy theorizes that the scapegoating of Shepherd and Irvin may be related to a broader effort to keep upwardly mobile blacks and independent black farmers in a low social position.
Violence
Episodes of violence and cruelty run throughout Devil in the Grove, starting with an altercation between a young black man and a white appliance store owner in Columbia, Tennessee, which leads to a riot in 1946. Later, we read of the savage beating of Charles Greenlee, Samuel Shepherd, and Walter Irvin by the Lake County police, then the violent shooting of Shepherd by Sheriff Willis McCall. It is notable that much of the violence is perpetrated by those who are ostensibly officers of the law. We also see the violence of the KKK, for example the fatal bombing of Harry Moore’s house, resulting Moore’s and his wife’s deaths. Reporting of these incidents rouse people of good will across the country to bring the perpetrators to justice and prevent further violence. For example, the FBI provides a body guard for Marshall, and armed policemen patrol the streets outside the Marshall’s rally at Mt. Zion Church in Miami.
North Versus South
Devil in the Grove contrasts the racial atmosphere of the northern and southern United States. This is highlighted most strongly when Marshall has an unpleasant exchange with a white man on a train platform in Florida before boarding the New York–bound train. King tells us that Marshall “never felt safe until he was riding the rails north again” (22).
Throughout the book, the South appears as a lawless place in which, with regard to race, authorities are corrupt and the Constitution not in force. Marshall recalls, “So I wrapped my constitutional rights in cellophane, tucked ‘em in my hip pocket […] and caught the next train out of there” (22).
By stark contrast, Marshall reemerges in Penn Station, New York, as if in a different world. Here he feels anonymous and safe, blending into the crowd instead of standing out: “the anonymity of strolling across the breathtaking ten-story vaulted concourse like any other man wearing a fedora and hauling his briefcase and luggage suited Marshall just fine” (22).
Harlem, New York, is a place of culture and vitality, almost a separate society where blacks can live unmolested, happier, and freer life. The atmosphere of gaiety and abandon in Harlem is an extreme contrast with the poverty and hard labor that characterize life in rural Florida.
As a means of transportation, the train itself is part of this better world. Having once been a dining car waiter himself, Marshall identifies and gets along well with the black porters. He enjoys “sitting with a glass of bourbon in his hand, waiting for the porter to bring him a good cut of meat” (22). The train, speeding northward, is like a haven in which Marshall feels safe and in good company.
