The Scottsboro Boys
The Scottsboro Boys
All of us know the feeling of getting blamed for something we haven 't done. With that in mind try imaging getting put in jail for years for a crime you didn’t commit. That was the case for nine black men in Alabama in the year 1931.There was so much physical evidence proving that the nine boys were innocent, however the extreme racism Alabama government officials had towards African Americans is arguably the biggest factor that lead to this injustice. Even though there was a large amount of evidence proving their innocence, including physical evidence that the women weren 't raped and a confession from one of the victims that the rape never happened, they were still sentenced to life in prison. The events of March 25, 1931 was testified that the nine black men ranging from ages 13-21, hopped a train in search of work and raped two white women, Ruby Bates and Victoria Price. However there is no supporting evidence that this actually occurred. In fact there was an overwhelmingly amount of evidence proving their innocence. First off the nine boys weren 't even on the same part of the train as the white women and this can be proved in Roy Wright 's (one of the nine boys tried) statement, when questioned about the raping he stated that he had no idea what was going on and hadn 't seen anything involving a rape (Daniell, 1933). Likewise, when the two white women were examined Dr. Bridges and Dr. M.H. Lynch testified that indeed the two women had had intercourse recently, however, there was no sides of rough handling or anything that showed a sign of rape. They also stated that the women were not acting like they had been raped when initially brought in, but acted so later ("Scottsboro notes," ). Finally in the 1933 trail, Ruby Bates showed as a surprise witness for the defense and stated that the raping never had actually happened ("People & events:," 2000). Despite there being an
All of us know the feeling of getting blamed for something we haven 't done. With that in mind try imaging getting put in jail for years for a crime you didn’t commit. That was the case for nine black men in Alabama in the year 1931.There was so much physical evidence proving that the nine boys were innocent, however the extreme racism Alabama government officials had towards African Americans is arguably the biggest factor that lead to this injustice. Even though there was a large amount of evidence proving their innocence, including physical evidence that the women weren 't raped and a confession from one of the victims that the rape never happened, they were still sentenced to life in prison. The events of March 25, 1931 was testified that the nine black men ranging from ages 13-21, hopped a train in search of work and raped two white women, Ruby Bates and Victoria Price. However there is no supporting evidence that this actually occurred. In fact there was an overwhelmingly amount of evidence proving their innocence. First off the nine boys weren 't even on the same part of the train as the white women and this can be proved in Roy Wright 's (one of the nine boys tried) statement, when questioned about the raping he stated that he had no idea what was going on and hadn 't seen anything involving a rape (Daniell, 1933). Likewise, when the two white women were examined Dr. Bridges and Dr. M.H. Lynch testified that indeed the two women had had intercourse recently, however, there was no sides of rough handling or anything that showed a sign of rape. They also stated that the women were not acting like they had been raped when initially brought in, but acted so later ("Scottsboro notes," ). Finally in the 1933 trail, Ruby Bates showed as a surprise witness for the defense and stated that the raping never had actually happened ("People & events:," 2000). Despite there being an
References: Bergmark, C. (2012, June 22). The scottsboro boys case. Retrieved from http://socialistworker.org/2012/06/22/the-scottsboro-boys-case Daniell, R. (1933, March 10). Primary sources: the first days. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/scottsboro/filmmore/ps_wright.html People & events: Ruby bates, 1915 - 1976 . (2000). Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/scottsboro/peopleevents/p_bates.html Scottsboro notes. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www1.assumption.edu/users/McClymer/his261/ScottsboroNotes.html