Florida Man (and Woman) History, part 2

     Florida's rich and unique history has provided the inspiration for many authors. Here are some more works of fiction and non-fiction which have made an impression on me.

    On New Year's Day, 1923, a white woman named Fannie Taylor was beaten and bruised when her husband returned from work to their Sumner Florida home. Word spread fast that a black man had assaulted her.  The victim never named her assailant, but the sheriff immediately accused a resident of the nearby black settlement of Rosewood. An angry mob proceeded to Rosewood where they launched three days of murder and destruction which resulted in the deaths of at least eight people. Residents of Rosewood fled, the settlement disappeared, and, for nearly 60 years, Rosewood's existence and destruction were unknown to the outside world. In 1982, a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times published a story, revealing the details to the world. Michael D'Orso published Like Judgement Day in 1996, telling the complete story.

    Devil in the Grove is one of two books about racial violence in Florida written by Gilbert King and set in citrus country. In 1949, in Groveland Florida, a seventeen-year-old girl claimed she was raped. Four black boys were accused of the crime. Coming to their defense was chief NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall. Of course, we know that Marshall was the attorney who successfully argued against segregation in Brown vs. Board of Education and later became the first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. However, I learned a great deal about Marshall from King's book. Before the Brown case, he traveled around the South, acting as the defense for accused black defendants, like the Groveland boys.  The book really gave me a new respect and admiration for Marshall. At least in my prior education, Marshall had been presented as a second-tier figure in the civil rights movement. I think Devil shows that he deserves a lot more praise and recognition that he gets.  (The other King book is Beneath a Ruthless Sun; I haven't read it yet, but it's on my list.)

    

    The Nickel Boys , by Colson Whitehead, is a novel about the fictional Nickel juvenile detention center, and the abuse of the boys there. It's a grim read, but, like many novels, truth is stranger, or more grim, than fiction. The story is based on a real life institution called the Arthur T. Dozier School for Boys, the first juvenile detention center built in Marianna Florida and operative from 1897 to 2011. Throughout its history, Dozier was the site of horrific abuse administered by the staff, largely in the "White House," a structure built for the purpose of punishment. At least 100 boys died and were buried on the premises, in marked and unmarked graves.  

    Peter Matthiessen was also inspired by history to write the Shadow Country Trilogy, beginning with Killing Mister Watson. Watson was a real-life character who bragged of killing 57 people, including the notorious "Queen of the Outlaws", Belle Starr. In the late 1800s, he moved to the Florida Everglades, where he grew sugar cane, raised pigs, and collected wild bird feathers (At the time, feathers were in demand for women's fashion. As a result, some Florida birds were almost hunted into extinction.), and he terrorized his neighbors. In 1910, his neighbors stood up and killed him. The trilogy tells the story of the murder and the people who lived in the Everglades. Matthiessen is a great author, and I've enjoyed several of his books, including these.