If Florence Was Still Alive

[reese]

Maxine wrote that Flo told her family and days later they found out that the rapist had been beaten up. She says that's the only "justice" Flo got in the situation and makes no mention of the law getting involved. Mary wrote about Flo going to the cops and testifying in court. Only she can say what source she used for this. Maxine's book isn't well put together, and she jumps around so much that it'll make your head spin, but I can't see her devoting any portion of her book to Flo's rape and leave out how brave her sister was for going to the cops and testifying in court, both of which would've been rare for any female during that time, but especially rare for a Black female, and even rarer for a poor Black female. I don't think anything other than street justice happened in this case.

This was one of the things that confused me when I read Maxine's book. Its quite a leap from saying someone sent their assailant to prison to saying the assailant just received a thorough beat-down.

In a 1986/1987 Players article, Mary was asked something about whether she had received any negative feedback from revealing Flo's rape. I don't remember her entire answer, but she did mention that Flo's family wasn't happy about it.