Doobie Doo
Veteran

Daily Black History Facts
6 hrs ·
March 25, 1931: 9 African-American youths, accused of raping two white women on a freight train, were arrested at Paint Rock, Alabama. They were transferred toScottsboro, Alabama and become known internationally as the Scottsboro Boys.
The Scottsboro Boys were nine black teenage boys accused of rape in Alabama in 1931. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident dealt with racism and the right to a fair trial. The case included a frame up, an all-white jury, rushed trials, an attempted lynching, an angry mob, and is an example of an overall miscarriage of justice.
On March 25, 1931, several people were hoboing on a freight train traveling between Chattanooga and Memphis, Tennessee. Several white boys jumped off the train and reported to the sheriff they had been attacked by a group of black boys. The sheriff deputized a posse, stopped and searched the train at Paint Rock, Alabama, arrested the black boys, and found two white girls who accused the boys of rape.
The case was first heard in Scottsboro, Alabama in three rushed trials, where the defendants received poor legal representation. All but the 13-year-old Roy Wright were convicted of rape and sentenced to death, the common sentence in Alabama at the time for black men convicted of raping white women. But with help from the American Communist Party, the case was appealed.
The Alabama Supreme Court affirmed 7 of the 8 convictions, and granted 13-year-old Eugene Williams a new trial because he was a juvenile. Chief Justice John C. Anderson dissented however, ruling that the defendants had been denied an impartial jury, fair trial, fair sentencing, and effective counsel. Upon waiting for their trials, eight of the nine defendants stayed in Kilby Prison.
The case was returned to the lower court and the judge allowed a change of venue, moving the retrials to Decatur, Alabama. Judge Horton was appointed.
During the retrials, one of the alleged victims admitted fabricating the rape story and asserted that NONE of the Scottsboro Boys touched either of the white women.
The jury found the defendants guilty, but the judge set aside the verdict and granted a new trial.
After a new series of trials, the verdict was the same: guilty. The cases were ultimately tried three times. For the third time a jury—now with one black member—returned a third guilty verdict.
Charges were finally dropped for 4 of the 9 defendants. Sentences for the rest ranged from 75 years to death. All but two served prison sentences. One was shot in prison by a guard. Two escaped, were charged with crimes, and were sent back to prison.
PARDON IN 2013:
In early May 2013, the Alabama legislature cleared the path for posthumous pardons.
On November 21, 2013, the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles granted posthumous pardons to Weems, Wright and Patterson, the only Scottsboro Boys who had neither had their convictions overturned nor received a pardon.
Governor Robert J. Bentley said to the press that day:
"While we could not take back what happened to the Scottsboro Boys 80 years ago, we found a way to make it right moving forward. The pardons granted to the Scottsboro Boys today are long overdue. The legislation that led to today's pardons was the result of a bipartisan, cooperative effort. I appreciate the Pardons and Parole Board for continuing our progress today and officially granting these pardons. Today, the Scottsboro Boys have finally received justice.
THE DEFENDANTS:
•1936, Haywood Patterson was convicted of rape and sentenced to 75 years in prison. He escaped in 1949 and in 1950 was found in Michigan, but the governor refused to extradite him. In 1951 he was convicted in an assault and sentenced to prison, where he died of cancer in 1952.
•1936, Ozie Powell was involved in an altercation with a guard and shot in the face, suffering permanent brain damage. He pled guilty to assault, and the rape charges were dropped. He was paroled in 1946.
•1937, Charlie Weems was convicted and sentenced to 105 years. He was paroled in 1943 after having been held in prison for a total of 12 years in some of Alabama's worst institutions.
•1937, Andy Wright was convicted and sentenced to 99 years. He was paroled and returned to prison after violating parole. He was paroled in New York State in 1950.
•1937, Clarence Norris was convicted of rape and the only defendant sentenced to death. Governor Bibb Graves of Alabama in 1938 commuted his death sentence to life. Given parole in 1946, he "jumped" and went into hiding. In 1976 he was found in Brooklyn, New York. Governor George Wallace pardoned him that year, declaring him "not guilty." Norris published an autobiography,The Last of the Scottsboro Boys (1979). He died of Alzheimer's disease on January 23, 1989.
•1937, the state dropped all charges for Willie Roberson, Olen Montgomery, Eugene Williams, and Roy Wright, who had been already been in prison for 6 years. Roy Wright had a career in the US Army and Merchant Marine. In 1959, believing his wife had been unfaithful during his tour, he shot and killed her, and shot himself, committing suicide.
•2013, the state of Alabama issues posthumous pardons for Patterson, Weems, and Andy Wright.
The Scottsboro Boys, as they became known, at the time were defended by many in the North and attacked by many in the South. The case is now widely considered a miscarriage of justice that led to the end of all-white juries in the South. The case has inspired and has been examined in literature, music, theatre, film and television.
LEGACY IN POP CULTURE:
Literature
African-American poet and playwright Langston Hughes wrote about the trials in his work, Scottsboro Limited.
The novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is about growing up in the Deep South in the 1930s. An important plot element concerns the father, attorney Atticus Finch, defending a black man against charges of rape. The trial in this novel is often characterized as based on the Scottsboro case. But Harper Lee said in 2005 that she had in mind something less sensational, although the Scottsboro case served "the same purpose" to display Southern prejudices.
Ellen Feldman's Scottsboro: A Novel (2009) was shortlisted for the Orange Prize; it is a fictionalized account of the trial, told from the point of view of Ruby Bates and a fictional journalist, Alice Whittier.
Music
The American folk singer and songwriter Lead Belly commemorated the events in his song "The Scottsboro Boys."
In the song, he warns "colored" people to watch out if they go to Alabama, saying that "the man gonna get ya," and that the "Scottsboro boys [will] tell ya what it's all about."
Film and television
In 1976, NBC aired a TV movie called Judge Horton and the Scottsboro Boys, based on the case.
In 1998, Court TV produced a television documentary on the Scottsboro trials for itsGreatest Trials of All Time series.
Daniel Anker and Barak Goodman produced the story of the Scottsboro Boys in the 2001 documentary Scottsboro: An American Tragedy, which received an Oscar nomination.
Timothy Hutton starred in a 2006 film adaptation titled Heavens Fall.
Theater
The Scottsboro Boys is a staged musical portrayal of the Scottsboro case. The show premiered Off Broadway in February 2010 and moved to Broadway's Lyceum Theatre in October 2010. The show received good reviews, but closed on December 12, 2010. The musical opened in London's Young Vic Theatre in 2013 before moving to the Garrick Theatre in October 2014.