Biography
Charles Greenlee was the youngest of the Groveland Four — sixteen at the time — convicted in the 1949 Lake County, Florida rape case that became a national symbol of Jim Crow injustice. Spared the death penalty because of his age, he was sentenced to life imprisonment; he was paroled in 1962 and, with the others, posthumously pardoned in 2019 and exonerated in 2021.
One of the Groveland Four — four Black men accused on July 16, 1949 of raping 17-year-old Norma Padgett, a white woman, in Lake County, Florida — an accusation later proven false. Greenlee was 16 at arrest; sentenced to life imprisonment as a juvenile; paroled 1962. Officially exonerated by Florida courts in 2021.
Cases
Raiford Penitentiary
