Tom Robinson’s case in To Kill A Mockingbird resembles many Civil Rights Cases, specifically in the case of Powell vs. Alabama. In Powell vs. Alabama, several young white men…
The story of the Scottsboro boys is very similar to the case of Tom Robinson in the story To Kill a Mocking Bird. In The Scottsboro trials, nine boys were accused of assaulting two young girls. Six of those boys were accused of raping the two girls, Ruby Bates and Victoria Price.…
6. Describe the trials. Were they fair or unfair? Please include at least 3 supporting facts to back up your description. The Scottsboro boys…
“The tragedy of life is not death, but what we let die inside of us while we are living”. I learned about two admirable stories one was non-realistic and the other was realistic(true story). They are very similar to each other, the first one is a novel called To Kill a Mockingbird written by Harper Lee about a man named Tom Robinson who was on trial for being accused of raping a white woman. The second story was a documentary called Scottsboro: An American Tragedy about nine men accused the same crime. Racism is the main point in both of these devastating stories. I believe that racism is the reason why they are suffering this same tragedy.…
To begin with,the Scottsboro Boys are 9 African American boys.It all started March 15, 1931 during The Great Depression. The 9 boys was hanging off the side of the train illegally when a white guy stepped on his hand. Immediately a fight broke out between the blacks and whites.After the fight the whites got off the train and told the police that they were assaulted by 9 blacks. Eventually the black boys were forced off the train. The police somehow managed to find 2 white girls Ruby Bates and Victoria Price and persuade them to accuse the blacks of rape. Rape was a huge conviction like murder. During an 8 week time span the nine boys were convicted of rape and sentenced to death except the youngest one age 13 who was sentenced to life in…
The rape of two white girls by nine black teenagers on a freight train on March 25, 1931 was the most controversial trial eve . Over the course of the two decades that followed, the struggle for justice of the "Scottsboro Boys," as the black teens were called, made celebrities out of anonymities, launched and ended careers, wasted lives, produced heroes, opened southern juries to blacks, exacerbated sectional strife, and divided America's political left.…
The ‘Scottsboro Boys’ is a reference to one of the most famous series of trials in 1930’s. The story surrounding the Scottsboro cases involves nine young African American boys and their alleged gang rape of two white women: Victoria Price and Ruby Bates. This highly questionable rape accusation would spark unprecedented amounts of trials, convictions, reversals, and retrials. Because of these trials, celebrities were made from anonymities, careers were launched and ended, lives were wasted, heroes were created, and America’s political left was divided.…
During the time of Jim Crow Laws, black people were not allowed to vote or have any voting roles, which banned them from serving on juries. This resulted in juries, police officers, and courtroom roles to be all-white. Racism led to the unfair convictions of many innocent black people. Some of these people may have not been tried, and they may have been lynched before they got the chance. Today, all trials are judged fairly, and all courtroom roles can be of whatever race. The influence upon Harper Lee to write her novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, was based on real life events. These include the Scottsboro Trials, expectations upon women in the South, and Jim Crow Laws.…
The Scottsboro trials occurred in the 1930s and had nine African American boys aging from thirteen to seventeen and they were accused of raping two girls on a train. Eight of the nine boys were sentenced to death and one of them was too young for the death penalty so he was sentenced to life in prison. There was a lot of evidence that pointed to them being innocent. Like the two girls were examined by a doctor and he found no evidence of rape, but he was not called to court, but he told a lot of people. Also they found out the girls were prostitutes and they were crossing a border illegally so they covered it up saying they were raped. Later on, during the case one of the girls admitted that she was never raped. Also the boys were not in the same train cart as the girls (Johnson). The Scottsboro trials are a lot like Tom Robinson’s trial in To Kill a Mockingbird. The cases are a lot alike, because they both took place during the Great Depression and they both are rape cases. Also the towns took the white person’s side instead of the African Americans sides (Johnson). That is why the Scottsboro trials are like the trials in To Kill a…
One day, the boys were riding a train. Some white teenagers, who were also on the train, accused the Scottsborro boys of beating them and kicking them off of the train. When the police arrived to investigate, 2 white girls riding on the train accused the boys of raping them. Some of the Scottsboro boys admitted to fighting with the white boys. Contrarily, there lacked evidence that the boys had raped the 2 girls. Medical evidence suggested no rapes had taken place. Despite evidence that no rapes had occurred, all 9 boys were incarcerated. In fact all of the boys except for the youngest (a 12 year old named Roy Wright) were convicted of rape and sentenced to death. The case was appealed. The Scottsboro boys endured 4 trials that spanned a decade. During the trials, the boys were denied impartial juries, appropriate legal counsel, fair trails, and fair sentencing. Following the first trial, Samuel Leibowitz (who was a well known lawyer) defended the boys. Four of the 9 boys were freed after enduring 6 years in prison. Eventually, all of the boys except for 1 were…
The Scottsboro Trials were among the most infamous episodes of legal injustice in the Jim Crow South. The events that culminated in the trials began in the early spring of 1931, when nine young black men were falsely accused of raping two white women on a train. The cases were tried and appealed in Alabama and twice argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. Despite evidence that exonerated the accused and even a retraction by one of the accusers, the state pursued the case and all-white juries delivered guilty verdicts that initially carried the death penalty. Several of the accused were sentenced to prison terms and all endured long stays in prison as the case made its way through the legal system. The case later served as one of the inspirations for Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird.…
The Scottsboro Boys were nine black teenage boys accused of rape in Alabama in 1931. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident dealt with racism and the right to a fair trial.…
On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered a speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. Martin Luther King said “I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; that one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.” For many years prejudice was a large problem in Alabama. A novel that emphasizes the magnitude of this problem is entitled “To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee. Three examples from the novel that show the extent of prejudice in Maycomb, Alabama are the jury convicting Tom Robinson, everyone in the community rejecting Mr. Raymond and when Mr. Ewell approached Atticus the day after the trial. In the novel “To Kill A Mockingbird”, prejudice has a massive impact on many people throughout Maycomb, Alabama.…
The jury must reach a verdict after considering all of the evidence presented. The jury helps to contribute to a impartial and fair trial. The jury system in To Kill A Mockingbird had a large impact on Tom Robinson’s case. This case was an example of a bias and unequal justice system, fuelled by the racial views of the town. For Tom Robinson’s trial the jury consisted of 12 white men, which was typical for juries of 1930’s in America. Robinson’s trial was not stand-alone case, here have been many parallel insidents in American history. For example “Scottsboro Boys’, nine young black men falsely accused of raping two white women on board a train near Scottsboro, Alabama. This case succeeded in highlighting the racism of the American legal system. Within two weeks of the women’s accusations the Scottsboro Boys were convicted and eight sentenced to death and the youngest, Leroy Wright, at the age of 13, to life imprisonment. This case illustrates through fact, what the author tried to covey in To Kill A…
In 1931, nine black boys boarded a train at Chattanooga to Memphis. Little did these boys know that they would be accused of raping two white women. Victoria Price and Ruby Bates were the women that the boys “rapped”. On the train with Victoria and Ruby were several white boys. A fight broke out between the white boys and black boys. The black boys were arrested for assault and attempted murder. While the white boys were only forced off of the train. On March 26, the news spreads across the country and the allegations stir up a lynch mob that gathers outside of the Scottsboro jail. The trial begins on April 6th, and everyone crowds around gather outside Courthouse Square. April 7th-9th, Victora Price testifies that six of the boys had raped her, and six of the boys raped Ruby Bates. Eight of black boys, Clarence Norris, Charlie Weems, Haywood Patterson, Olen Montgomery, Ozie Powell, Willie Roberson, Eugene Williams and Andy Wright were tried, convicted and sentenced to death by electrocution. Roy Wright, one of the youngest boys, was hung by jury. The executions of the eight defendants were stayed and pending their appeal to the Supreme Court of Alabama (Leutwyler 1).…