Scottsboro Boys

Scottsboro Boys

The Scottsboro boys were 9 young black men, wrongly accused of raping two white girls. These men were to be killed, and these men died innocent. The trials of the men went on for years. Going from judge to judge it took forever.

On the day of March 25, 1931, the boys we unemployed and riding the rails illegally. There were two white girls on the train, Ruby Bates and Victoria Price. These girls told the cops of Scottsboro that 9 young black men had raped them. "In a series of trials the youths were found guilty and sentenced to death or to prison terms of 75 to 99 years" (info please). The boys were separated because of age so there were 2 or 3 groups of boys.

The trials went on for a while several boys died in Are there racist undertones to his case? How could there not be? Racism is not something one generation conquers for once and all.

Ideas--right or wrong--die very slow deaths.

When a rock falls into a pond, it makes a big splash and sends out ripples that get smaller and smaller. I wonder if the 70-year-old cases of the "Scottsboro Boys" still generates little waves in our national conscience.

That case bounced through the state courts of Alabama and eventually the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1930s, touching raw nerves for years.

The "Scottsboro Boys" were nine The U. S. Supreme Court got the case, and ordered a new trial because of the clear incompetence of their apointed lawyers. The defendants would be tried one at a time.

New trials started in 1933, and a New York defense attorney ripped the accusations to ribbons in his cross-examinations. One of the women admitted there was no rape. Holes in the stories were exposed. The result? Two more death sentences. The Alabama jurors were not going to be fooled by slick New York attorneys and evidence, no sir!