Kiki Petrosing, Bright: A Memoir
(Louisville, KY: Sarabande Brooks, 2022), 106 pages.
The term “Bright” implies, within an African American context, a mix-race individual. It describes Petrosing. Her mother is an African American and her father an Italian. This is the second book I’ve read by her in preparation to hearing her at this year’s Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Click here to read a review of her book on Virginia.
In this memoir, written as a poetic style, the author struggles with many issues. There’s her Italian grandfather’s suicide, the meaning of poetry, Catholic traditions, and the struggle between being grounded and a life of the spirit. As in the volume of her poetry I read earlier, she deals with Thomas Jefferson (whose slaves gave birth to other “Brights”). She draws in other poets, such as Dante, Shakespeare, and her mentor Gregory Orr. Learning that she teaches at the University of Virginia, I wondered if she knew Orr. Having read some of Orr’s poetry and his memoir, The Blessing, I was expecting this memoir to be prose. But Petrosing does it her way. As I read, I found myself drawn to the glimpses of her life.
C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
(1942, New York: HarperCollins, 1996), 209 pages.
The Screwtape Letters is a classic. In this book, Screwtape, an older demon, writes letters to his young nephew, Wormwood, providing advice as to how he might best tempt his “patient.” The book only consists of Screwtape’s letters, but we learn Wormwood regularly corresponds back through Screwtape’s reference to the letters. The world of Screwtape is different than ours. These are evil spirits and everything is upside down. The goal of the demons is to trap the patient into their world where he will become “food.”
These letters show how even good things can be used for evil purposes. All is not lost to the demons when the patient joins a church. Other temptations appear. The tempters don’t have to encourage bad behavior. Instead, they just have to draw their “patients” away from God and force them to think highly of themselves and their abilities.
This is my third time reading this book. I read it first in collage, and again maybe 20 years ago. This time, I read much of the book twice along with parts of a study book on the letters as I lead a discussion on it through Lent.
Gilbert King, Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America.
narrated by Peter Frances James (Harpers, 2013), 17 hours and 53 minutes.
While driving back and forth to Hilton Head and on to the Okefenokee this month, I listened to Gilbert King’s Pulitzer Prize winning history of a shameful event in American history. King winds together several stories, centering around a supposedly rape, to bring to life a tragedy which occurred in the post-World War years in rural Florida.
At the center of the story is Thurgood Marshall, who led the NAACP’s legal defense fund. As a young lawyer working for the NAACP, Marshall rode trains south to defend African Americans in Jim Crow Courts. His main strategy was to win appeals and to take the case to the Supreme Court, where he had an envious record, winning 29 of his 32 cases before the highest court. Marshall also oversaw the Brown vs Topeka Board of Education which set the stage for the end of segregation. In 1967, long after the Groveland trials, President Johnson appointed Marshall to the Supreme Court where he became the first African American justice. In addition to Marshall’s work on the Groveland case (which came as they appealed), King provides a background into his early years as a Civil Rights lawyer. Like many individuals who seem larger than life, Marshall had his faults. King notes his problem within his marriage, his womanizing, and his love for bourbon.
Another character at the center of the story in Lake County, where the rape supposedly took place, was Sheriff Willis McCall. He’s the “Devil in the Grove,” a man who ruled Lake County, Florida for decades. McCall protected gambling interests, low wages in the citrus groves, and segregation. He was not above taking the law in his own hands, as the recently opened FBI files showed.
The case, known as the Groveland Boys, begins with a 17-year-old Norma Padgett and her estranged husband attempting to get back together. Going out for the evening and drinking a lot of liquor, the two found themselves broken down on a deserted road. Two young black men stop to help. When Padgett’s estranged husband disrespects them, a fight ensues. Norma takes off. What happens next is subject to speculation. Padgett’s husband made it back into town, telling the story that his wife’s kidnapping. This might have been to protect himself from Norma’s father, also a violent man with Klan ties. Norma shows up early that morning at a diner and doesn’t seem to have been in any kind of fight or rape. Those who saw her thought she was calm. It appears that at this point, she and her husband collaborate on their story, and a posse starts looking for four black men, even though only two were at the scene the evening before.
A doctor who examined Norma could not positively say she’d been raped but challenged the idea she had been physically attacked. This information, questioned the legitimacy of the Norma’s story and was suppressed. The defense discovered it only after conviction. Another suppressed piece of information was the young man working at the diner who gave Norma a ride that morning. He noted, in the second trial, how she appeared as if nothing had happened.
Three of the four charged with the crime were arrested. The fourth attempted to run and was later shot. The three who went to trial were found guilty, two of whom were sentenced to death. and moved to the Florida State Penitentiary. During the appeal, Thurgood Marshall became involved with the case and assisted local attorneys. They won a new trial for the two on death row. Sheriff McCall and a deputy, in separate cars, went to pick up the prisoners and move them back to Lake County for trial. Locking the prisoners together in his car, McCall then took a back road where he supposedly had a flat tire. He said that while he was changing, the two men attacked him and he shot them. The Sheriff called the deputy on the radio. He came, realized Walter Irvin remained alive and shot him again. Irvin, wounded, played dead. When the coroner arrived thinking both men were dead, he realized Irvin was alive and had him transported to the hospital. At this point, the FBI becomes involved.
The second trial also resulted in a convection and a death sentence. But things were changing in Florida. A new governor, who wanted to protect the state’s booming tourist and agricultural interest, had an attorney friend examine the case. He concluded the men had been framed. The governor pardoned Irvin. The state later exonerated and freed him. Charles Greenlee, who had received a life sentence was also freed. At this point, even the prosector, Jesse Hunter, admitted an injustice occurred and the defendants had been framed.
Harry T. Moore, another character in this story, headed the Florida NAACP. On his twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, he and his wife were killed when Klansmen firebombed his home. Moore, who had his own battles with the NAACP along with segregationists like Sheriff McCall. He had been influential in bringing Thurgood Marshall in on the case. In addition to this, Marshall had to be careful during his time in Lake County. And he also had threats and attempts on his life and safety.
King had access to NAACP legal defense records as well as the recently opened FBI records pertaining to the case. Drawing on this information, the framing of the Groveland Boys can be easily seen. I recommend this book, especially as today many in our nation desire to undo the gains America has made in Civil Rights over the past 75 years. It should remind us that our nation’s hands are not as clean as people often imagine.