Tuesday, August 26, 2014

SCOTTSBORO BOYS

"All NEGROES POSITIVELY IDENTIFIED BY GIRLS AND ONE WHITE BOY WHO WAS HELD PRISONER WITH PISTOL AND KNIVES WHILE NINE BLACK FIENDS COMMITTED REVOLTING CRIME."
March 25, 1931
  • Alleged gang rape of two white girls by nine black teenagers on the Southern Railroad freight run from Chattanooga to Memphis.
  • At trial 8 of the 9 boys are tried, convicted and sentenced to death
  • The youngest Roy Wright age 13, comes at a stall between life imprisonment or the death sentence.
  • NAACP supports defendants but soon backs out from case
  • Ruby Bates(women of the women claimed to be raped) denying the rape all together and testifies in court.
  • Defendants convictions are held and new trials begin
  • All white jury every time because blacks were excluded from that power.
  • Alabama Supreme Court as well as US supreme court get involved.
  • All boys are transferred to new court
  • The girls who were "raped"Victoria Price and Ruby Bates were prostitutes who made everything up
  • All defendants were released after serving an average of 10 years
*Many months of corruption and retrial after retrial.
*The story of the Scottsboro Boys is one of the most shameful examples of injustice in our nation's history.
*A black was presumed guilty unless he could establish his innocence beyond a reasonable doubt.
*The cases show that to jurors, black lives didn't count for much.


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