Essay On The Scottsboro Case

The Scottsboro boys, and the case as a whole, divided America further in many aspects. During the time of the event, the Jim Crow laws were still in place, the Ku Klux Klan was present, and the Great Depression had just recently occurred. As a result of the Great Depression, “hobos” because more plentiful and many people were unemployed. When this event occurred, and was publicized internationally, I believe it exposed the true condition of America after the depression, and intensified the stringent division between the Northern and Southern parts of the United States socially, politically, religiously, and, most famed, racially. Not only did it reveal the conditions of the post-Great Depression it also showed the extreme discrimination still
The first newspaper, The Huntsville Daily Times, was direct to white people who lived in Alabama. In their article about the Scottsboro Case, they used harsh, negative connotation in the heading to create an initial opinion of the case before reading the article. In the article, words such as “alleged” were not used, instead, the simply stated that they had committed the crimes. In addition, they portrayed the Scottsboro Boys in a distasteful way; “And as the story was being unfolded, the negroes were telling jokes in another part of the bastille. Nasty jokes, unafraid, denying to outsiders they were guilty, laughing, joking, unafraid of the consequences, beasts unfit to be called human” (The Huntsville Daily Times). In the paper directed towards African American called The AfroAmerican, described the event very differently. “Death sentences imposed upon seven youths at Scottsboro, Alabama, for the alleged criminal assault of the two white women were set aside by the Supreme Court.” The talked about the boys as “innocent until proven guilty” rather than how the newspaper for the white people focused on saying the boys were guilty. The AfroAmerican also focused on the condition of the boys and the status of their trials. Differently from the other two newspapers, the Communist paper, Young Worker, portrayed the boys as unquestionably innocent, as the title of the article was “Nine Innocent Scottsboro Boys.” The paper even went as far as to show a picture of the boys with discouraged faces and focused the misrepresentation the boys were receiving. The Scottsboro Case, and cases similar, have influenced public opinions toward Alabama that most definitely still linger today. Many people who come from places that accept racial diversity believe that Alabama is a racist state and is discriminatory