TALLAHASSEE—After a dramatic, hourlong meeting that recalled events from nearly seven decades ago, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state’s three-member Cabinet granted posthumous pardons on Jan. 11, to four African-American men accused of raping a white woman in a 1949 case now seen as a racial injustice.
The case of the men known as the Groveland Four has been documented in a book and is considered a blight on Florida’s history. One of the four was killed before he could be charged and the other three were convicted on dubious evidence.
