Scottsboro Boys Relation to to Kill a Mockingbird
The Scottsboro Boys case was a controversial case which took place in 1931, wherein nine boys were accused of raping two white girls while on a freight train heading to Memphis, Tennessee from Chattanoogaon, on March 25, 1931. It was one of the most important cases in American history that had much to do with racism in the South. This case grew quickly partly because of a growing American Communists movement taking place during that time. The party thought that they could publicize their ideas of opposing racism and racial segregation and fighting for integration in workplaces during the height of the Jim Crow period of the U.S. by supporting this case. These boys were really poor so they couldn’t afford a good lawyer, but the Communists gathered up some cash and assigned Samuel Leibowitz, the second best lawyer in America during that time, to stand up for the nine black boys in this insidious accusation of rape.
In total there were four trials and most of them ended in failure. The nine boys were sent to different prisons, but three of them were released early because they were either too young, or they were found to be blind, and so acquitted of the crime. In the end, all of the boys were released except Haywood Patterson who was sent to Attison Prison Farm where he worked twelve hours a day under the hot sun with the other prisoners. Patterson wasn’t released because the jury said that he looked like a rapist and therefore could not be trusted.
Eventually, Patterson escaped from the prison farm along with eight other prisoners. Their lives continued in despair, even after they were all free, the majority of them died either in prison or elsewhere. Only Clarence Norris built up a new life in the north where he waited thirty years for a pardon from the Alabama Court and the Parole Board, which he eventually received in the end.
This factual event is almost the exact same as Tom Robinson’s case in To Kill A Mockingbird. At first, I thought that one of the two
In total there were four trials and most of them ended in failure. The nine boys were sent to different prisons, but three of them were released early because they were either too young, or they were found to be blind, and so acquitted of the crime. In the end, all of the boys were released except Haywood Patterson who was sent to Attison Prison Farm where he worked twelve hours a day under the hot sun with the other prisoners. Patterson wasn’t released because the jury said that he looked like a rapist and therefore could not be trusted.
Eventually, Patterson escaped from the prison farm along with eight other prisoners. Their lives continued in despair, even after they were all free, the majority of them died either in prison or elsewhere. Only Clarence Norris built up a new life in the north where he waited thirty years for a pardon from the Alabama Court and the Parole Board, which he eventually received in the end.
This factual event is almost the exact same as Tom Robinson’s case in To Kill A Mockingbird. At first, I thought that one of the two