“You wouldn’t know it from reading the Orlando Morning Sentinel in the years immediately following the incident. “The story had many more ugly twists and turns marked by lies, cover-ups and injustice. After recounting the details of the case and coverage, the editorial continued: The case was the subject of Gilbert King’s 2013 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “ Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America,” which set in motion the state’s reexamination of the case. “We’re sorry that reporters and editors failed in our duty to readers, to the community and to the Groveland Four and their families.”
Some newspapers, including the Sentinel, had especially grievous sins to confess. They are acknowledging - belatedly - what their forebearers did and did not do in covering racism, white supremacy, terror and segregation over the past 150 years. In recent years, a handful of the region’s newspapers have stepped forward to accept responsibility for biased reporting and editorials, shouldering their share of the burden of racist Southern history. Ron DeSantis, who characterized the case as a “miscarriage of justice.” This followed a vote two years ago by the Florida legislature for a “heartfelt apology” to the families of the four men.
The occasion for the editorial was the anticipated official pardon by the State of Florida’s Clemency Board, chaired by newly elected Gov. In January, the Orlando Sentinel posted an impassioned apology for inflaming racial tensions decades ago in a 1949 case called “The Groveland Four.” Four young African American men were accused of raping a white woman, charges that resulted in the extra-judicial killings of two of them and the lengthy imprisonment of two others.
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