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The trial of the Scottsboro Boys arose in Alabama during the 1930s, when nine black youths, none older than twenty-one, were accused of raping two white women (Victoria Price and Ruby Bates) on a train. After a trial now regarded as one of the travesties of the American justice system, the defendants remaining (some had the charges against them dropped) were given very harsh sentences, including life-long terms in several cases and two death sentences, despite the fact that one of the women later denied being raped. The convictions were eventually overturned after multiple appeals, and all of the defendants were eventually acquitted, paroled, or pardoned (besides one who simply escaped), some after serving years in prison. Tom Robinson's trial in Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird was inspired by this case.
The beginnings
March 25, 1931, a fight between black and white broke out on a Southern Railway freight train after a white man stepped on a black man, Haywood Patterson. All the white men except Orville Gilley were forced off. When the train stopped in Paint Rock, Alabama, the nine blacks were arrested on charges of assault. Two women dressed in boys' clothing, Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, were found hiding on the freight train as well. They were all taken to Scottsboro, Alabama, the Jackson County seat. The two women agreed to testify against the nine blacks on a rape charge.
After a lynch mob gathered, the Governor of Alabama, Benjamin M. Miller, was forced to call the National Guard to protect the jail. On March 30, the Scottsboro Boys were indicted by a grand jury, and in April all were convicted and sentenced to death, except for one thirteen year old boy, who was sentenced to life in prison. In April, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the International Labor Defense (legal arm of the Communist Party USA) both took up the case, but the NAACP dropped the case in January, 1932. Despite the fact that Ruby Bates appeared in court and denied that she was ever raped, the Alabama Supreme Court affirmed the convictions of seven of the boys in March, 1932. The reason Ruby Bates's claim was so overlooked was because she appeared before the court as a Northerner; dressed in modest clothing and the general feeling the jury and court felt was as though she had only changed her claim because anti-racism/abolitionists in the North had paid her to do so. Samuel Leibowitz, a noted Jewish attorney from New York who was widely known for winning the vast majority of his criminal cases, defended the boys.
The end of the case
In July, 1937, Clarence Norris was convicted of rape and sentenced to death, Andy Wright was convicted of rape and sentenced to 99 years, and Charlie Weems was convicted and sentenced to 75 years in prison. Ozie Powell pleaded guilty to assaulting the sheriff and was sentenced to 20 years. In addition, four of the boys, Roy Wright, Eugene Williams, Olen Montgomery and Willie Roberson, were released after all charges against them were dropped.
Later, Governor of Alabama Bibb Graves reduced Clarence Norris' death sentence to life in prison. Norris was later pardoned by the governor. All of the Scottsboro Boys were eventually paroled, freed or pardoned, except for Haywood Patterson, who had been tried and convicted of rape and given the death penalty four times. He escaped north to Detroit, Michigan. When he was later arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the 1950s, Governor of Michigan G. Mennen Williams did not allow him to be extradited back to Alabama.
The Scottsboro boys
- Olen Montgomery
- Clarence Norris
- Haywood Patterson
- Ozie Powell
- Willie Roberson
- Charles Weems
- Eugene Williams
- Andrew Wright
- Leroy "Roy" Wright
Marker
See also
Further reading
- Carter, Dan T., Scottsboro: A Tragedy of the American South
- Goodman, James, Stories of Scottsboro
- Norris, Clarence, and Washington, Sybil D., The Last ot the Scottsboro Boys: An Autobiography
External links
- Bienen, Leigh & Gilbert Geis. Crimes of the Century: From Leopold and Loeb to O. J. Simpson. Boston: Northeastern Univ. Press, 1998. *
Disputed convictions | History of African-American civil rights
"Scottsboro Boys"