Gilbert King
Author of Devil in the Grove
About the Author
Gilbert King was awarded the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction for Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America, which was also a New York Times bestseller and a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. A contributor to Smithsonian magazine and The show more Marshall Project, King also writes about justice for The New York Times and The Washington Post. He lives in New York City. show less
Image credit: Gilbert King
Works by Gilbert King
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Other names
- King, Gilbert Anthony
- Birthdate
- 1962-02-22
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Rockville Center, New York, USA
- Education
- University of South Florida
- Occupations
- writer
photographer - Organizations
- New York Times
Washington Post
Smithsonian - Awards and honors
- Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, University of South Florida
Pulitzer Prize (2013) - Agent
- Farley Chase, Chase Literary Agency
Members
Reviews
Lists
Awards
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 11
- Members
- 1,224
- Popularity
- #20,980
- Rating
- 4.2
- Reviews
- 55
- ISBNs
- 25
- Favorited
- 2
The book does an excellent job setting the scene and trying to recreate events although he never tries to present anything he doesn't know for sure as fact leading to certain gaps in the story of the night in question. The men are hunted down, confessions are beaten out of them, evidence manufactured, there is an attempted lynching and later in the book certainly a murder by law enforcement that goes unpunished due to the complicity of cracker white supremacy. It is truly sickening.
One of the worst parts of this book are seeing the attitudes reflected in the people of today. I have family that lives in that part of Florida. I hear the things the State's politicians say - "where woke goes to die." It seems a chilling echo of this legacy. As one of the NAACP lawyers says in the book - "They have just taken their hoods off."
The book escapes a higher rating from me only because it felt long. I really enjoyed learning more about Thurgood Marshall and the other cases he tried, but some parts about the NAACP politics etc were a drag. At times the book was not engaging.
Anyway, this book is deserving of its Pulitzer Prize and I think should be required reading in any US History course. The one thing I do know is that I never want to step foot in the State of Florida again. I'll be damned if if ever give them another dime of my vacation budget.… (more)