After decades of waiting, the descendants of the Groveland Four will receive financial compensation from the state of Florida.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has formally approved a state budget that includes $4 million in restitution for the families of Charles Greenlee, Walter Irvin, Samuel Shepherd, and Ernest Thomas — four young Black men who were falsely accused of crimes they did not commit in 1949.
DeSantis held a press conference at Hillsborough College in Tampa to officially sign the $117.6 billion 2026–27 state budget.
DeSantis said “there’s historical precedent for when you’re righting wrongs” and that he supported the restitution after speaking with Senate leadership and the Black Caucus.
The approval marks the culmination of a 77-year fight for justice and a significant victory for civil rights advocates, closing a dark chapter in Florida’s history with a tangible acknowledgment of state failure.
The legislative journey
The path to financial compensation was hard-fought. Earlier this year, legislation spearheaded by state Sen. LaVon Bracy Davis (D-Ocoee) passed the Senate unanimously but subsequently stalled in the House. Refusing to let the measure die, lawmakers revived the funding during overtime negotiations for the 2026–27 fiscal year budget.
Under the finalized terms, the state will divide the $4 million equally, awarding $1 million to each of the four men’s surviving estates.
“This moment is about more than dollars,” state Sen. Bracy Davis said after the budget’s legislative passage. “It’s about acknowledging the truth, honoring the pain these families have carried for generations, and taking a real step toward justice.”
Davis dedicated the legislative push to her mentor, the late state Sen. Geraldine Thompson, who was instrumental in initiating the effort to recognize the Groveland Four.
A tragic legacy of injustice
The Groveland Four case remains one of the most heavily documented acts of racial terror in Florida’s Jim Crow era. In 1949, the four men were accused of raping a 17-year-old white woman in Lake County.
The tragedy that unfolded was brutal:
For decades, the families fought strictly to clear the names of their loved ones. In 2019, Gov. DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet granted full, posthumous pardons to the men, with DeSantis noting their history was “wrongly written.” Two years later, a Lake County judge fully vacated the convictions and dismissed the indictments, legally restoring their presumption of innocence.
‘A day of restitution’
While many of the surviving relatives originally sought only the exoneration of their loved ones, one high-profile advocate said that financial compensation serves as a vital acknowledgment of the state’s role in the atrocities.
During a speech at the Groveland Four Monument Dedication on Friday, Feb. 21, 2020, Gary Corsair, author of “The Groveland Four: The Sad Saga of a Legal Lynching,” praised the inclusion of the funding, though he acknowledged the bittersweet reality for those who fought the hardest.
“Naturally, I’m pleased that the State of Florida is finally compensating the families,” he said. “The wheels of justice moved much too slowly to benefit those who lived the nightmare of wrongful convictions.”
Long-awaited recognition for reporter who broke Groveland Four story
The Daily Commercial reported on a local campaign to induct Mabel Norris Reese (1914-1995), the Mount Dora reporter who broke the story about the four young Black men falsely accused of rape and exposing the brutal “torture chamber” operated by Lake County Sheriff Willis McCall.
On May 7, the DAR’s Mary Ellen Robertson Chapter, based in Leesburg, honored the famed journalist at the American Legion Post 35 in Mount Dora.
This article originally appeared on Daily Commercial: DeSantis greenlights $4 million for families of the Groveland Four
Reporting by Julie Garisto, Leesburg Daily Commercial / Daily Commercial
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Julie Garisto, Leesburg Daily Commercial | USA TODAY Network
