State Senate Apologizes For Decades Old Racial Injustice
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TALLAHASSEE (CBSMiami/AP) — Nearly seven decades after four black men were accused of raping a white teen, the state's Senate has formally apologized to their families in a case that has come to symbolize racial injustice.
The resolution unanimously approved Thursday also asks Gov. Rick Scott and the Cabinet to grant the men full posthumous pardons.
The Lake County men known as the Groveland Four were accused of the rape in 1949 under dubious circumstances. One of them was hunted down by a posse of about 1,000 men and shot more than 400 times.
Three others were convicted. After the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a new trial in 1951, a sheriff shot two of them, claiming the handcuffed men were trying to escape. One died.
The two surviving men were eventually paroled.
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