Gilbert King

Gilbert King is an American author and journalist whose work focuses on civil rights history and the American justice system. He studied at Fordham University and has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Smithsonian magazine. His book Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America (2012) recounted the harrowing case of four young Black men wrongfully accused of rape in 1949 Florida — and Thurgood Marshall's dangerous and ultimately triumphant defense of them before the Supreme Court. The book won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. King's meticulous research uncovered previously classified documents and untold stories about racial terror in the Jim Crow South. His subsequent book The Execution of Willie Francis (2008) examined another racially charged death penalty case.