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On July 12, 2024, Norma Padgett, accuser of exonerated "Groveland Four,'" died at 92.
Last edited Sat Aug 10, 2024, 05:37 PM - Edit history (1)
Hat tip, a letter to the editor in today’s {Saturday, August 10, 2024} paper.
Opinion | Readers critique The Post: Zip it, distressed jeans lady
White jeans, pink pajamas and dunce caps of undetermined hue.
By Letters to the Editor
August 9, 2024 at 7:00 a.m. EDT
Every week, The Post runs a collection of letters of readers’ grievances — pointing out grammatical mistakes, missing coverage and inconsistencies. These letters tell us what we did wrong and, occasionally, offer praise. Here, we present this week’s Free for All letters.
{snip}
https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/3LLYSWAWAQI6DGA77IGXGUIO2A&w=916
Harriette V. and Harry T. Moore in the late 1940s. (Family photo)
Slander, then slaughter
The very informative Aug. 1 Metro obituary “Falsely accused the Groveland Four, precipitating a miscarriage of justice” omitted Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore, two others who were killed because of Norma Lee Padgett’s lies. The Moores were voting and civil rights activists who were instrumental in involving the NAACP’s Thurgood Marshall in the Groveland Four case. They demanded the removal from office of Lake County, Fla., Sheriff Willis V. McCall after he questionably stated he shot two manacled prisoners in self-defense. Late in the evening of Christmas 1951, which was also the Moores’ 25th wedding anniversary, a bomb exploded under their bedroom floor. Harry died immediately, Harriette nine days later. Decades later, the Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Justice Center in Brevard County, Fla., was named in their honor.
Paul L. Newman, Merion Station, Pa.
White jeans, pink pajamas and dunce caps of undetermined hue.
By Letters to the Editor
August 9, 2024 at 7:00 a.m. EDT
Every week, The Post runs a collection of letters of readers’ grievances — pointing out grammatical mistakes, missing coverage and inconsistencies. These letters tell us what we did wrong and, occasionally, offer praise. Here, we present this week’s Free for All letters.
{snip}
https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/3LLYSWAWAQI6DGA77IGXGUIO2A&w=916
Harriette V. and Harry T. Moore in the late 1940s. (Family photo)
Slander, then slaughter
The very informative Aug. 1 Metro obituary “Falsely accused the Groveland Four, precipitating a miscarriage of justice” omitted Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore, two others who were killed because of Norma Lee Padgett’s lies. The Moores were voting and civil rights activists who were instrumental in involving the NAACP’s Thurgood Marshall in the Groveland Four case. They demanded the removal from office of Lake County, Fla., Sheriff Willis V. McCall after he questionably stated he shot two manacled prisoners in self-defense. Late in the evening of Christmas 1951, which was also the Moores’ 25th wedding anniversary, a bomb exploded under their bedroom floor. Harry died immediately, Harriette nine days later. Decades later, the Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Justice Center in Brevard County, Fla., was named in their honor.
Paul L. Newman, Merion Station, Pa.
Norma Padgett, accuser of exonerated ‘Groveland Four,’ dies at 92
Her claim of rape against four Black men in 1949 precipitated what is now recognized as a grotesque miscarriage of justice in the Jim Crow South.
Sheriff Willis V. McCall, far left, and an unidentified man stand next to three of the accused “Groveland Four”: Walter Irvin, Samuel Shepherd and Charles Greenlee in Lake County, Fla. (State Library and Archives of Florida)
By Tim Johnson
July 31, 2024 at 12:58 p.m. EDT
In the predawn hours of July 16, 1949, a young White couple — Norma Lee Padgett and her husband, Willie — were driving along a desolate road in central Florida after a night of whiskey drinking and dancing at the local American Legion hall.
They were near the rural crossroads of Okahumpka, on the way to get a bite to eat, when their Ford stalled. After no one else stopped to assist them, two Black men in a sedan rolled up and asked if the couple needed help. The Padgetts later said a fight broke out that left Willie Padgett lying in a ditch. What ignited the fight, and whether it even took place, has not been conclusively established.
At daybreak, after walking several miles, 17-year-old Ms. Padgett appeared on foot at a dine-and-dance club in Okahumpka and asked the night watchman for a ride to her home down the road in Groveland, an agricultural town also in Lake County. Once there, Ms. Padgett told authorities that the Black men — who she said were four in number — had beaten her husband, then drove her away in their car at gunpoint and took turns raping her in the back seat before releasing her.
Ms. Padgett, whose accusation precipitated what is now recognized as a grotesque miscarriage of justice in the Jim Crow South, died July 12 at 92.
{snip}
Lake County Sheriff Willis V. McCall, center, escorts Willie Padgett and Norma Padgett to the state attorney's office for questioning in 1949. (Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)
{snip}
Sharon Dunten in Butler, Ga.; Susan Cooper Eastman in Jacksonville, Fla.; Gabrielle Russon in Lake County, Fla.; and Aaron Schaffer, Alice Crites and Emily Langer contributed to this report.
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Her claim of rape against four Black men in 1949 precipitated what is now recognized as a grotesque miscarriage of justice in the Jim Crow South.
Sheriff Willis V. McCall, far left, and an unidentified man stand next to three of the accused “Groveland Four”: Walter Irvin, Samuel Shepherd and Charles Greenlee in Lake County, Fla. (State Library and Archives of Florida)
By Tim Johnson
July 31, 2024 at 12:58 p.m. EDT
In the predawn hours of July 16, 1949, a young White couple — Norma Lee Padgett and her husband, Willie — were driving along a desolate road in central Florida after a night of whiskey drinking and dancing at the local American Legion hall.
They were near the rural crossroads of Okahumpka, on the way to get a bite to eat, when their Ford stalled. After no one else stopped to assist them, two Black men in a sedan rolled up and asked if the couple needed help. The Padgetts later said a fight broke out that left Willie Padgett lying in a ditch. What ignited the fight, and whether it even took place, has not been conclusively established.
At daybreak, after walking several miles, 17-year-old Ms. Padgett appeared on foot at a dine-and-dance club in Okahumpka and asked the night watchman for a ride to her home down the road in Groveland, an agricultural town also in Lake County. Once there, Ms. Padgett told authorities that the Black men — who she said were four in number — had beaten her husband, then drove her away in their car at gunpoint and took turns raping her in the back seat before releasing her.
Ms. Padgett, whose accusation precipitated what is now recognized as a grotesque miscarriage of justice in the Jim Crow South, died July 12 at 92.
{snip}
Lake County Sheriff Willis V. McCall, center, escorts Willie Padgett and Norma Padgett to the state attorney's office for questioning in 1949. (Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)
{snip}
Sharon Dunten in Butler, Ga.; Susan Cooper Eastman in Jacksonville, Fla.; Gabrielle Russon in Lake County, Fla.; and Aaron Schaffer, Alice Crites and Emily Langer contributed to this report.
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