Rabina Mainali Sign 111 Dr. Dulan 3 November, 2015 Witnesses of the Scottsboro trials The Scottsboro trials came about during the year 1931 when Great Depression had hit the South hard. In search of work several individuals boarded a freight train from Chattanooga to Memphis, Tennessee not knowing their future ahead wasn’t so bright. While in the train a white man stepped on a black man’s hand, later identified as belonging to Haywood Patterson. A fight between the white youths and Patterson’s
Annotated Bibliography Altman, Susan. “Scottsboro Trial.” Encyclopedia of African-American Heritage, Second Edition, Facts On File, 2000. African-American History.
Harper Lee´s life is similar to the character Scout from To Kill A Mockingbird. The Scottsboro trial was occurring when Harper Lee was growing up, and the Tom Robinson case was occurring when Scout was growing up. Harper Lee used lots of her family names for names for people for To Kill A Mockingbird. Harper Lee and Scout were both tomboys and both a had boy bestfriend.
In the south back in the 1930’s there were many Americans who did not know the meaning of equality for all. With this being the case, many black people faced discrimination daily and it followed through to the legal systems especially in the south where both being compared took place. The evidence provided in both trials proved to be weak. Despite this, both defendants had determined lawyers who believed in justice.
Injustice is seen a lot in this world whether it is racial, healthcare, gender inequality, or even economic injustice but today we will be focusing on the Scottsboro boys and the trial of Powell vs Alabama. In the 1930’s, nine young African American teenagers as young as 13 years old were falsely accused of rape and eight were sentenced to prison over a crime they did not commit. Although they were eventually released after years, not because of insufficient evidence but because they served a significant amount of time in prison as minors and kept having to retrial, it still does not distract from the fact it took 82 years to clear their names over a crime they did not commit and subsequently ruined their reputation and lives while they were
The Scottsboro Trails last two decades that came along with wasted lives, ended careers, people being made into hero’s, and opening southern juries to the blacks. Much like in To Kill a Mocking Bird, The Scottsboro Trails society shaped everything and everyone around them. In this case, how did society shape Mayella Ewell, Ruby Bates, and Victoria Price into victims and accuser? Mayella Ewell and Ruby Bates are in many ways similar victims unlike Victoria Price. In the Mayella’s story she was from a very small prejudice town during the depression.
The Scottsboro Case: The Landmark Case and Its Impact on Capital Punishment The Scottsboro Case was a huge injustice and was deemed the most significant case on fighting racism in southern courtrooms and capital punishment. This case had numerous mistakes by prosecutors, witnesses, jurors, etc. It illustrates how race impacted the outcomes of many court cases dating back to the 1930s.
In the history of the United States of America, there have been many situations in which a trial was unfair, both in the cases of state and federal indictments. However, none of these have measured up to the outrageous inequity and negligence by the Alabama legal system in 1930. This poses the question: to what extent did the Scottsboro Trial reveal the faults of the U.S. Judicial System? Going so far to tie back to the Constitution, the Scottsboro Trial violated many rights of these boys, regardless of race; even the judges and prosecution put the system to shame. Aside from years of trial, falsely incriminating evidence, and biased courts, the Scottsboro boys faced years of judges, prosecutors, and mobs trespassing on their basic human rights.
The Scottsboro case went a little like this, nine black boys were charged rape against two white women. They were brought to trial in Scottsboro, Alabama in April 1931 after they had already been in jail for three weeks. “ Despite the testimony by doctors who examined the girls and said there was no sign of rape, the men were charged with rape and sentenced to death except for the youngest of twelve years old. ” As stated in Scottsboro case law article. The scenticting of death was lifted but after all of them had already spent 6 years in jail.
The Scottsboro Trials were unfair and biased towards the black boys. Two prostitutes accused nine boys on a train of rape. The prostitutes committed a federal crime, by them crossing state boarders without a reasonable cause (Johnson). Right when the prostitutes got of the train, they cried rape. A majority of the nine boys were not even in the same train car as the prostitutes (Johnson).
In today’s world, many people live their lives by the way they are influenced by society. People nowadays are influenced by society in many ways. They are influenced by the way other people react to certain situations, any news they see in the media, or just the way they were raised by their families. With the victims of the Scottsboro trial and the novel To Kill a Mockingbird you can see how all these things plays an effect on the way Mayella, Ruby, and Victoria are shaped and you will see how the character, Mayella, relates to the non-fictional victims of the Scottsboro trial. During the trial in both the fictional and non-fictional cases society plays a big role on shaping the people involved as victims.
Scottsboro Racism Paragraph The Scottsboro trials were a long horrific eighteen-year-long trial about eight black boys in Scottsboro, Alabama. According to Anderson in the video lecture “Scottsboro Boys” a large group of people had gotten on a train to find work when a large fight broke out on the train. The fight was between eight black men and a few white men, the train stopped in Scottsboro when two white women got off the train and accused the eight black men of rape. The eight boys were brought into court and trialed. There were multiple cases of racism in the Scottsboro trials, one included that all the boys were trialed together and in only one day.
Injustice The Scottsboro Case shed light on the racial practices expressed in law that made a great impact on the legal system today. The actual victims of the Case did not receive a fair trial due to the color of their skin. The ones who played the victims planned the crime, and their stories made no sense. But like many of the trials during the time it wasn’t based on the actual evidence that was found,or even the defendants ' stories.
Matthew Kidd Mrs. Moore English 10 Honors, Period 5 2 February 2023 To Kill a Mockingbird Theme Analysis Essay The book To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel by Harper Lee that is set during the Great Depression in Maycomb, AL. Similar to the Scottsboro trial, which occurred in a similar setting, To Kill a Mockingbird details the trial of an innocent African-American man accused of rape from the perspective of Scout Finch who sees her father work for equality and defends the innocent black man. Scout learns from her father about the racist nature of Maycomb and understands that she also must work for change.
Isn't it terrible how people have to suffer from injustice due to other people's negative idea of what justice should be? In the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, one of the main characters Scout, a bright girl who is oblivious to the terrible realities of society, observes the trial of Tom Robinson, a black man who was wrongfully convicted of rape. As Scout becomes older her little eyes are enlightened to the injustices in the once uncomplicated world around her. In a similar way, Bryan Stevenson's "We Need to Talk about an Injustice" TED Talk from 2014 discusses how his morals shifted as he studied law, interacted with people on death row, and learned about flaws in the legal system. Together, Harper Lee and Bryan Stevenson use their