In July 1949, Walter Irvin, Samuel Shepherd, Charles Greenlee, and Ernest Thomas, known collectively as the Groveland Four, were accused of crimes in Lake County. Eyewitness accounts, records, and subsequent investigations revealed that they were subjected to racially motivated oppression and were never given the opportunity to legitimately defend themselves in a court of law. Evidence showed that Charles Greenlee could not have been present when the alleged crime was committed. Ernest Thomas was slain before he could receive due process. Walter Irvin never confessed despite being tortured. Samuel Shepherd was killed by a law enforcement officer before he could be retried. The brutality and injustice they endured led to the wrongful deaths of Thomas and Shepherd and the unfair incarcerations of Irvin and Greenlee. Prominent civil rights lawyers worked on the case, including Thurgood Marshall, who later became the first African American justice on the United States Supreme Court. After the Federal Bureau of Investigation discovered suppressed evidence and other legal irregularities, Florida Governor LeRoy Collins commuted Walter Irvin's death sentence in 1955. The families of the Groveland Four continued seeking justice, and nearly 70 years later, on January 11, 2019, the Governor of Florida and Cabinet, sitting as the State Clemency Board, issued full pardons to Walter Irvin, Samuel Shepherd, Charles Greenlee, and Ernest Thomas. Supported by Lake County residents, family members, local and state officials, citizen advocates, and authors Gary Corsair and Gilbert King, the pardons also reflected extensive research that documented lack of evidence, manufactured evidence, witness perjury, and systemic racism by then-Sheriff Willis V. McCall. In 2019, the Lake County community united to support these pardons and to affirm its condemnation of racism and injustice and its belief in fairness, compassion, and equal protection under the law.