Scottsboro Boys
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.
Scottsboro Trial DefendantsThe saga began on March 25, 1931, when a fight broke out between groups of young black and white passengers riding a freight train through Jackson County. The white boys were forced from the train and wired ahead to the next stop on the line to have the black youths apprehended. When the train stopped just outside the town of Paint Rock, local police and a mob apprehended nine African Americans ranging in age from 13 to 20. Only four of the boys knew each other and were traveling together. The police also questioned Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, two white women who also were hitching a ride on the train looking for work. In the hope of avoiding vagrancy and morality charges, the women falsely accused the nine young black men—Olen Montgomery, Clarence Norris, Haywood Patterson, Ozzie Powell, Willie Roberson, Charlie Weems, Eugene Williams, and brothers Andy and Roy Wright—of rape. The accused were arrested and transported to Scottsboro, the Jackson County seat, to await trial.
Over the next seven years, as the case made its way through the state and federal judicial system, "Scottsboro" became an international cause célèbre
Scottsboro Trial DefendantsThe saga began on March 25, 1931, when a fight broke out between groups of young black and white passengers riding a freight train through Jackson County. The white boys were forced from the train and wired ahead to the next stop on the line to have the black youths apprehended. When the train stopped just outside the town of Paint Rock, local police and a mob apprehended nine African Americans ranging in age from 13 to 20. Only four of the boys knew each other and were traveling together. The police also questioned Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, two white women who also were hitching a ride on the train looking for work. In the hope of avoiding vagrancy and morality charges, the women falsely accused the nine young black men—Olen Montgomery, Clarence Norris, Haywood Patterson, Ozzie Powell, Willie Roberson, Charlie Weems, Eugene Williams, and brothers Andy and Roy Wright—of rape. The accused were arrested and transported to Scottsboro, the Jackson County seat, to await trial.
Over the next seven years, as the case made its way through the state and federal judicial system, "Scottsboro" became an international cause célèbre