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Scottsboro Trial

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Scottsboro Trial
Racism is part of everyday human society and it is human nature to judge other by their skins color, race, or the way they look. The novel, To Kill A Mockingbird written by Harper Lee, talks about perspective of a young girl named Jean Louise or Scout on series of events that happen in the town Maycomb, Alabama. Her father and a widower, Atticus Finch, is a lawyer with high moral standards and with the help of Calpurnia, a black cook, Scout and Jem discover the extent of racism in their home community while witness many events such as snow in Maycomb, neighbor house burning down and rape trial between a white woman and a black man and these events significantly change her at the end of the book. The two consequences of racial discrimination …show more content…
In the nonfiction article, Scottsboro Boys: Trials and Defense Campaign written by Jessie Kindig, talks about nine black youths being falsely accused of sexually harassed two white women on the freight train and lead to unfair trial between the two parties. After the boys got off the train, the Scottsboro deputies pressured two women, Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, into accusing the nine youths and “The charge of raping white women was an explosive accusation, and within two weeks the Scottsboro Boys were convicted and eight sentenced to death, the youngest, Leroy Wright at age 13, to life imprisonment”. With the all-white juries, the boys were convicted to death sentence and life imprisonment by Alabama Supreme Court because some lower class white women falsely accused the boys. The boys were denied fair trial, impartial jury and fair sentence by the Alabama Court. The boys did not have a safe environment during the years of the trial and the governor have to call state militia to protect the boys from lynch mob. When this case was moved to the lower court, one of the accuser admitted that they fabricated the story but the jury still convict the boys as guilty because they are colored people. The trial in Trial in To Kill a Mockingbird is possibly an allusion to the Scottsboro Trial with colored people being wrongfully accused by white women and injustice in the courtroom when there is evidences that prove the defendants are innocent. These are the effects and consequences of racism ruining the boys’ lives over a false rape

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