What Was The Significance Of The Scottsboro Trials In The 1900's

In the early to mid-1900’s Americans were cruel to African-Americans through racism, segregation, and inequality. The Scottsboro Trials took place in the 1930’s and consisted of nine ‘colored’ men accused of raping two white women on a train. Of course, since life wasn’t exactly fair for everyone during this time, the trials resulted in biased results. Plus, the jury selected, was made up entirely of white men who were clearly in favor of the two white women. The Scottsboro Boys’ Trials eventually shaped the way for the direction in which discrimination in the United States progressed over time.

The Scottsboro Trial created the pathway for other important events soon to happen during the 1900’s. To begin, on March 25, 1931, nine young men were riding a train traveling between
Chattanooga and Memphis. While on the train the men had gotten into a fight with a group of white men that got them kicked off the train and arrested. There were two white women on the train at the time of their arrest who accused them of rape.
“Although there was overwhelming evidence that no interaction had ever occurred between the women and the black youth,” the trial continued against these nine men (Amistad 2). The men’s names were Charlie Weems, Ozie Powell, Clarence Norris, Olen Montgomery, Willie Roberson, Haywood Patterson, Eugene Williams, and Andrew and Leroy Wright, who was the youngest at age 12. The fact that there was no evidence, yet there was still a trial proves how unfair life was for African-Americans when compared to whites during this time period. Eventually, the trials came to end by saying that, “all but the youngest, who was 12 years old, were sentenced to death” (Thirteen 1). In other words, eight out of the nine men involved received the death sentence for something that they were innocent for. During the time of the Civil Rights Movement, white men and women did not care how African-Americans felt, thought or believed. It was almost as if white thought the African-Americans were worthless. Although most of the men received the death sentence, about a year later, in November of 1932, in Powell v Alabama, the Supreme Court ruled
that the “Scottsboro Boys” were not correctly represented at their trial, resulting in the need for a new trial. The late realization of bias then led “Powell v Alabama to establish the right to effective council in death penalty cases and the guarantee of an unbiased jury” (American Justice 705). The Scottsboro trial was the spark of a movement to stop the exclusion of people of color in a jury. Once again, the Scottsboro Trials of the early to mid-1900’s were unfair and bias against African-Americans, which helped to pave the road for future events that took place during the Civil Rights Movement.

The Scottsboro Trials are very much related to Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird in multiple ways. For example, the novel is about a man who was accused of raping and beating a white woman. The actions of what happens in the novel are very much related to the Scottsboro Trials because, in both, there is at least one African-American male on trial for being accused of rape. To Kill A Mockingbird and the Scottsboro Trials highlight the fact that during the early 1900’s, life was rough for those who were not classified as white. Since both the novel and the trial took place in the 1930’s during the Great Depression, one could assume that Harper Lee used the Scottsboro Trials as inspiration when writing the novel trying to educate how unfair the time period of the Civil Rights Movement was for African-Americans.