Book Signing with Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author Gilbert King

Finish registering to buy your copies of Gilbert King's books and attend our signing on Wednesday, February 12 to have them personalized by the author himself. You won't want to miss another event the following evening: "An Evening with Author Gilbert King & Hon. Charles E. Williams" presented by The Boxser Diversity Initiative on Thursday, February 13 from 6-7:30 p.m. at the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens! Just click here to reserve a space: https://secure.qgiv.com/for/boxserdiversityinitiative/event/kingwilliams/

ABOUT DEVIL IN THE GROVE: THURGOOD MARSHALL, THE GROVELAND BOYS, AND THE DAWN OF A NEW AMERICA

Winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction

Nominated for a 2013 Edgar Award

In 1949, Florida's orange industry was booming, and citrus barons got rich on the backs of cheap Jim Crow labor. To maintain order and profits, they turned to Willis V. McCall, a violent sheriff who ruled Lake County with murderous resolve. When a white seventeen-year-old Groveland girl cried rape, McCall was fast on the trail of four young blacks who dared to envision a future for themselves beyond the citrus groves. By day's end, the Ku Klux Klan had rolled into town, burning the homes of blacks to the ground and chasing hundreds into the swamps, hell-bent on lynching the young men who came to be known as "the Groveland Boys." And so began the chain of events that would bring Thurgood Marshall, the man known as "Mr. Civil Rights," and the most important American lawyer of the twentieth century, into the deadly fray. Associates thought it was suicidal for him to wade into the "Florida Terror" at a time when he was irreplaceable to the burgeoning civil rights movement, but the lawyer wound not shrink from the fight - not after the Klan had murdered one of Marshall's NAACP associates involved with the case and Marshall had endured continual threats that he would be next.

Drawing on a wealth of never-before-published material, including the FBI's unredacted Groveland case files, as well as unprecedented access to the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund files, King shines new light on this remarkable civil rights crusader, setting his rich and driving narrative against the heroic backdrop of a case that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Rober Jackson decried as "one of the best examples of one of the worst menaces to American justice."

ABOUT BENEATH A RUTHLESS SUN: A TRUE STORY OF VIOLENCE, RACE, AND JUSTICE LOST AND FOUND

Named a BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR by NPR and The Washington Post

In December 1957, the wife of a Florida citrus baron is raped in her home while her husband is away. She claims a "husky Negro" did it, and the sheriff, the infamous racist Willis McCall, does not hesitate to round up a herd of suspects. But within days, McCall turns his sights on Jesse Daniels, a gentle, mentally impaired white nineteen-year-old. Soon Jesse is railroaded up to the state hospital for the insane, and locked away without trial.

But crusading journalist Mabel Norris Reese cannot stop fretting over the case and its baffling outcome. Who was protecting whom, or what? She pursues the story for years, chasing down leads, hitting dead ends, and winning unlikely allies. Bit by bit, the unspeakable truths behind a conspiracy that shocked a community into silence begin to surface.

BENEATH A RUTHLESS SUN tells a powerful, page-turning story rooted in the fears that rippled through the South as integration began to take hold, sparking a surge of virulent racism that savaged the vulnerable, debased the powerful, and roils our own times still.

ABOUT GILBERT KING

GILBERT KING is the writer, producer, and host of Bone Valley, a multi-part narrative podcast about M**der and injustice in the 1980s central Florida, from Lava For Goods podcasts. He is the author of three books, most recently, BENEATH A RUTHLESS SUN. His previous book, DEVIL IN THE GROVE was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction in 2013. A New York Times bestseller, the book was also named runner-up for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. King has written about race, civil rights, and the death penalty for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Atlantic, and he was a 2019-2020 fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Writers and Scholars at the New York Public Library. King's earlier book, THE EXECUTION OF WILLIE FRANCIS, was published in 2008. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.

ABOUT "AN EVENING WITH AUTHOR GILBERT KING & HON. CHARLES E. WILLIAMS"

The Boxser Diversity Initiative presents An Evening with Author Gilbert King & Hon. Charles E. Williams on Thursday, February 13 from 6-7:30 p.m. at the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens. Listen as they explore the intersection of legal history and social justice. King discusses the gripping narratives of his Pulitzer Prize-winning book DEVIL IN THE GROVE and his latest work BENEATH A RUTHLESS SUN. Together, they examine the chilling legacy of Sheriff Willis McCall, a central figure to both books, as well as the life experiences of African Americans in Florida during the Jim Crow era. Discover how the history of race relations, law, politics, and economics shaped the lives of people profiled in his books. Gain unique insights into the art of non-fiction writing, as King reveals how his investigative storytelling transcends the crimes themselves to reflect on the broader issues of criminal justice and the American experience. This event is free and open to the public. Space is limited; reservations are required at https://secure.qgiv.com/for/boxserdiversityinitiative/event/kingwilliams/

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Bookstore1Sarasota, 117 S. Pineapple Ave., Sarasota, United States