TKAM Unit The Scottsboro Trial

Studying these trials will… sharpen your understanding of To Kill a Mockingbird. the historical trial(s) & the fictional one reflect the prevailing attitudes of the time.

that arise because of those attitudes. To Kill A Mockingbird Explores: social Problems legal problems that arise because of those attitudes.

IMAGINE: You are driving down the street when suddenly a group of strangers pull you out of the car and threaten to hang you. You are put on trial for a crime you didn't commit and the sentence is death.

IMAGINE: that you are tried over and over again, and each time you go back to death row. That's what happened to the nine black men in the following photograph.

The Scottsboro Boys

What? During the Great Depression of the 1930’s, poor people would ride in railroad freight cars, trying to get to a town that might have work. In 1931, two white women were riding the trains along with two groups of men: one white and another black.

A fight broke out between the two groups of men A fight broke out between the two groups of men. The blacks won and threw the whites off the train. The whites reported this to the local sheriff, and the train was stopped in Scottsboro, Alabama. Everyone on board was arrested.

Victoria Price was in serious trouble because her friend, Ruby Bates, was a minor. It's a federal crime to take a minor across state lines for the purpose of prostitution. In order to get out of trouble, Victoria and Ruby said that the black men had raped them.

In 1931, rape was punishable by death In 1931, rape was punishable by death. Considering the races of the accusers (white) and accused (black), the normal response would have been a lynching (hanging someone who is suspected of a crime). But the people of Scottsboro held a trial, instead.

the result had been decided before the trial began. Of Course... the result had been decided before the trial began. The Scottsboro Boys were convicted and sentenced to death - at the first trial.

But that was only the beginning. The Scottsboro Trials dragged on for six more years resulted in two Supreme Court rulings.

ARTICLES FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES: March 25, 1931 JAIL HEAD ASKS TROOPS AS MOB SEEKS NEGROES Riot Feared in Scottsboro Ala., After Arrest of Nine, Held for Attacking Girls Special to The New York Times HUNTSVILLE, Ala.,  March 25     Fearing a mob outbreak at Scottsboro, county seat of Jackson County, following the arrest of nine Negroes charged with attacking two white girls, a detachment of militia was ordered to the Jackson County jail tonight.     Sheriff Waun at Scottsboro asked for troops when a crowd which had gathered about the jail became threatening.  The Sheriff wired to Montgomery that the crowd numbered 300.     Later, however, the sheriff reported that the mob wa dispersing as the night was cold, and danger seemed averted.     The girls, who gave their names as Ruby Bates, 23, and Victoria Price, 18, were in a box car with seven white men when the Negro tramps got in at a point between Stevenson and Scottsboro.  They threw six of the white men off the train.     The seventh and the girls are said to have fought desperately until the white man was knocked unconscious.     The men who had been thrown out of the car telegraphed ahead to Paint Rock.  When the train arrived there a Sheriff's posse surrounded the car and captured the Negroes after a short fight.     The Negro prisoners and their white accusers were taken to Scottsboro where the Negroes were formally charged with criminal assault on a woman,  a capital offense in Alabama.  The white men who had been in the box car were held as material witnesses.

April 11, 1931 CONDEMNED NEGROES RIOT IN ALABAMA JAIL Eight Sentenced to Die For Attack on White Girls Are Subdued and Manacled. GADSDEN, Ala.,  April 10  (AP)     Protesting against their sentences, eight negroes condemned to death at Scottsboro yesterday for attacking two white girls rioted in the Etwah County jail today, but were subdued by guards, who placed them in irons.     The Negroes, who were returned here under military escort after being sentenced for attacking the girls traveling as hoboes, aboard a freight train, shouted demands for special food, beat on the cell bars and tore up the bedding.     Their shouts were heard some distance from the jail and Sheriff T. L. Griffin, who occupies an apartment on the lower floor of the jail, removed his family.     Sheriff Griffin appealed to military authorities for aid, and colonel W. M Thompson and Captain C.C. Whitehead went to the jail.     With sufficient guards to prevent an attempted break, the "Bull pen," in which the Negroes were confined, was opened and guards handcuffed the prisoners in pairs.     Governor Miller at Montgomery today received protests in the case from the International Labor Defense in New York and the League of Struggle for Negro Rights of New York and the Anti-Imperialist League of the United States.  All charged the Negroes "were railroaded."  The governor declined to comment.

Testimony of “Victims” http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/proj ects/FTrials/scottsboro/NEWS4- 4.HTM New York Times, April 4, 1933.

U.S. Supreme Court reversed convictions twice on procedural grounds Results: U.S. Supreme Court reversed convictions twice on procedural grounds 1. the youths' right to counsel had been infringed. 2. that no blacks had served on the grand or trial jury.

one of the women recanted her previous testimony… At the second trail… one of the women recanted her previous testimony…

Judge Horton: In his charge to the jury, he described both women as poor witnesses who contradicted their own stories. Later, in his reversal of Patterson's conviction, Horton wrote that all women deserved protection under the law, but then went on to suggest that historically, women of low character were known to lie.

Results continued… The belief that the case against the “Scottsboro boys” was unproved the verdicts were the result of racism caused 1930’s liberals and radicals to come to the defense of the youths.

Quotes from Trial: Victoria Price (victim): "I ain't done nothing but told the truth and nothing but the truth. I told it in every trial...; there has been over a thousand pages and every one of my pages is alike and if I had to do it all over... it would be the same thing again. Truth will stand where a lie will fall."

Quotes from trial (1976) Dan T. Carter: William Bradford: "I am convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that she was never raped. I am convinced to a moral certainty that, as Judge Horton put it, she "knowingly testified falsely in many material aspects of the case." I have read the prison letters of the Scottsboro defendants and talked to a bitter Clarence Norris. I cannot forget the suffering she needlessly inflicted upon nine black teenagers.... But if she had lied about the rape, she had done so because she lived in a setting which encouraged and rewarded this monstrous lie." (friend of Ruby Bates Schut) "Nine black boys on a train with two white girls? It was the most logical thing in the world."

Conclusion: After the broadcast of "Judge Horton and the Scottsboro Boys," Ruby Bates, now Ruby Bates Schut, and Victoria Price, now Katherine Queen Victory Street, sued NBC for slander and invasion of privacy. Bates Schut died before the case came to trial, but Mrs. Street took the stand as before. The suit was dismissed, although a settlement was made out of court.