More than seven decades after the Groveland Four were falsely accused of rape, the families of the four men will receive $4 million from the State of Florida.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the state’s 2026-27 budget June 29, making the compensation package official and completing another long-awaited step for the descendants of Charles Greenlee, Walter Irvin, Samuel Shepherd and Ernest Thomas.

For Charles Greenlee’s daughter Carol Greenlee, the moment brings gratitude and relief.

“I’m grateful to Gov. DeSantis for signing the compensation into law, and especially to Sen. Bracy Davis and all of the legislators who championed the cause,” Carol, 76, says from her home in Tennessee.

Sen. LaVon Bracy Davis sponsored legislation seeking compensation for the families during the 2026 legislative session. The Senate approved the measure unanimously, but its companion bill did not advance in the House.

The funding remained alive through negotiations, however, when lawmakers included $4 million in the final state budget to be divided into $1 million per family or estate.

“This was a final act in a series of steps to clear the name of my father and other members of the Groveland Four and I’m very, very appreciative of that,” Carol says.

Carol was born in November 1949, months after her father was arrested. Charles, only 16 at the time, was sentenced to life in prison and served about 12 years before he was paroled in 1962.

Her mother initially took her to visit him in prison every Sunday, Carol previously said. Eventually, Charles asked her to stop because seeing his young daughter under those circumstances was too painful.

Carol did not see her father again until she was about 11 or 12.

That time can never be returned.

“The truth will get rid of some of the shame, but it won’t get rid of the past shame and pain we and so many suffered at the time, if you understand what I mean,” she says.

The compensation follows a series of state actions that family members spent decades seeking.

The Florida Legislature formally apologized to the families in 2017. DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet issued pardons in 2019. In 2021, a judge dismissed the indictments against Thomas and Shepherd and vacated the convictions of Greenlee and Irvin, formally clearing all four men.

Gary Corsair, a longtime journalist and author of “The Groveland Four: The Sad Saga of a Legal Lynching,” says Henrietta Irvin, sister of Walter Irvin and sister-in-law of Samuel Shepherd, also played a critical role in keeping the fight for justice alive.

“Henrietta Irvin is the reason this day of restitution has finally arrived,” Gary says.

Carol says though she’s grateful for every bit of justice and progress up until the compensation’s approval, that Judge’s ruling was the biggest blessing, by far.

“The money doesn’t even begin to make me feel as good, or as whole, as when that judge hit the gavel and delivered the exoneration,” she says.

The case began in 1949, when the four Black men were falsely accused of raping a white woman near Groveland.

Thomas fled Lake County and was brutally shot and killed by a posse organized by then-Lake County Sheriff Willis McCall before he could be tried. Greenlee, Irvin and Shepherd were convicted by an all-white jury.

Shepherd and Irvin were sentenced to death, while Greenlee received a life sentence because he was a juvenile.

The U.S. Supreme Court later overturned the convictions of Shepherd and Irvin and ordered new trials. While McCall was transporting the two handcuffed men from the state prison in Raiford to Lake County in 1951, he shot both of them, claiming they tried to escape.

Shepherd died. Irvin survived and later said McCall shot them without warning.

Irvin was convicted again and sentenced to death, though his sentence was later commuted to life in prison. He was paroled in 1968 and died the following year. Greenlee died in 2012.

Samuel Shepherd’s niece, Vivian Shepherd, who lives in Clermont, notes that although nothing can be done to change the past, everything that’s been done since then serves as a symbol of hope for the future.

 “I truly believe in the importance of correcting a wrong and making it right,” Vivian says. “Our families have suffered unimaginable pain and heartbreak for years, carrying the stain of a false accusation.”

“While no amount of compensation can ever replace a loved one’s life that has been taken, it helps ease some of the burdens for those family members living today, giving them space to move forward.”

Similarly, Aaron Newson, a nephew of Ernest Thomas, says the pardons, exonerations, apologies and compensation package provides some relief after years of injustice.

Additionally, he’s obtained FBI files in the case that for 60 years had been sealed. Before they were to be discarded, Aaron asked to have them and has been meticulously reading through them for two-and-a-half years.

Today, he’s in the process of writing a book using excerpts from those files to tell what he calls the “real story” of what happened leading up to, during the night Greenlee, Irvin, Shepherd and Thomas were arrested for a crime they never committed and afterwards.

He says the book will not only cite information from the files but will include actual copies for people to review for themselves.

“It would have been nice if this hadn’t ever happened at all, but unfortunately, it did,” Aaron says. “And although they (Groveland Four) didn’t get a chance to see any of this happen, it sure would’ve been nice for my parents and grandparents to see it because they went through a real troubling time living with the injustice.”

Aaron, a 55-year-old retired corrections officer living near Rochester, New York, did not learn the full story of what happened to his uncle until 2018.

His parents and grandparents never discussed it.

Aaron says Ernest’s daughter (his cousin) called him after learning that pardons for the Groveland Four were being considered. During that conversation, she realized Aaron, who knew his uncle had been shot and killed, did not know exactly why.

“I was floored. I was absolutely floored,” Aaron says. “I couldn’t believe, first of all, that they could treat anybody the way they treated those guys.”

“Nobody wanted to talk about it because it was a horrific time.”

Aaron says he looks up to all the people, especially the legislators, who since 2017, have pursued justice in this case.

“They were very brave in what they did because in the past before that, despite promises, they didn’t end up doing anything,” Aaron says.

Carol agrees, adding that the fight for her, was always about making sure the world knew her father’s truth. That promise kept her going through years when progress seemed almost impossible.

She credits the lawmakers, attorneys, judges, historians, reporters and supporters who refused to let the case disappear, including the late Sen. Geraldine Thompson, who repeatedly pushed the state to clear the men’s names.

“God bless Senator Thompson. She stood firm and steadfast,” Carol says. “She was a hero in the face of all odds, then here comes Senator Bracy Davis to pick up that torch and carry it to the finish line.”

“These are women that won’t take this stuff laying down. They stand tall and if I lay down and die today, what I put my hope in is that all our women, crossing the spectrum of black, white, brown, blue, yellow, you name it, stand strong to protect our sons and daughters because that’s what’s needed.”

She also says the actions taken by state leaders over the years have restored some of her faith in the country and its justice system.

“There are still people in power with a conscience who believe in the truth and justice and the rule of law,” she says. “And even though there was so much pain involved though generations, the journey of pain is that it makes you stronger and it makes you appreciate more, those people who stand with you.”

“Thank God for all of the angels that helped shepherd this to this point.”

With that, though the state’s payment – not yet dispersed to the families – cannot erase the prison years, the violence, the fear or the 77 years of shame carried by families who had done nothing wrong, represents concrete recognition of the grave injustice done to these four men.

“My whole goal through this fight we’ve taken on for these 70 plus years, has been to let the world know that of father’s innocence, that he did not do this,” Carol says.