Lake County Commission Chairwoman Leslie Campione won support Tuesday for her proposal to install a permanent memorial to the Groveland Four on the lawn of the historic courthouse where injustices occurred seven decades ago.
The other three commissioners present — Tim Sullivan, Wendy Breeden and Josh Blake — backed Campione’s idea of placing a marker in front of the building where three of the four young men were jailed, beaten and convicted.
“We need to acknowledge it as part of our history — good, bad or indifferent,” Sullivan said. “Government didn’t get the job done.”
Commissioner Sean Parks, who left the meeting before the Groveland Four discussion, said later in a text message that he favors setting aside money “for an appropriate display and marker as well.”
The memorial would recount the controversial saga of the four African-Americans — Walter Irvin, Samuel Shepherd, Charles Greenlee and Ernest Thomas — who were falsely accused of raping a white teenage girl in 1949.
On Jan. 11, the Florida Clemency Board granted posthumous pardons to the men, with Gov. Ron DeSantis saying: “The way this was carried out was a miscarriage of justice.”
Racism was rampant throughout the South at the time of the attack reported by 17-year-old Norma Padgett that sparked a racist mob to descend on Groveland, burn the home of Shepherd’s family, and fire bullets into the homes of other black families and businesses.
“Having grown up in South Carolina, there’s a lot of scars that will never be erased, so to speak,” Sullivan said.
Campione said a memorial would show that Lake County today is a “fair and kind” community with public recognition of the breakdown of the justice system that occurred inside the courthouse walls.
“I think it would be an important part of the healing process,” she said.
She added that the county will consult with officials of the Lake County Historical Museum, which is located inside the historic courthouse, along with two authors to come up with the wording for a memorial.
Two books have been written about the subject: “The Groveland Four: The Sad Saga of a Legal Lynching,” by Gary Corsair and “Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America,” by Gilbert King. King won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction for his account.
“It has to be relatively condensed, but there has to be enough information that it’s understandable,” Campione said of the memorial’s text.
The museum has a modest Groveland Four exhibit, but commissioners said it’s important to have the memorial outside so people would be able to see it regardless of whether the museum was open.
County Manager Jeff Cole said staffers will work on picking the type of stone along with a design and suggested wording to bring back to commissioners for consideration.
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