On Monday, August 26th, 1935, Tom Robinson of Maycomb County was found guilty of beating and raping a young white woman; Robinson was found guilty of raping and sentenced to death by an electric chair. This abrupt verdict was decided after a full day at the Maycomb County courthouse. Mr. Finch, the local defense lawyer, was appointed to defend Mr. Robinson. The testimonies provided by Miss Mayella Ewell and Mr. Bob Ewell influenced the jury's decision and the guilty verdict for Mr. Robinson.
Likewise Trials Throughout the 1930’s, many accusations of rape were made against black males and brought up in court by white females. The Scottsboro Boys case (1931) and Tom Robinson’s case, from To Kill A Mockingbird, both represent how many of these cases played out. The Scottsboro Boys and Tom Robinson compare due to unfair trials and accusations held against them.
The charge of raping white women was an explosive accusation, and within two weeks the Scottsboro Boys were convicted and eight sentenced to death, the youngest, Leroy Wright at age 13, to life imprisonment. (D. Carter para. 2). At the time, during the trial the Alabama legal system was very prejudice, bias, and unconstitutional. First, the legal system was prejudice because the council that was provided was inadequate to defend his defendants and also the trial only took two weeks.
This essay will be about two injustices the Scottsboro trial and Tom Robinson’s trial. A few similarities are that they were treated unfairly and they were all accused of a repulsive crime, raping a white woman. In the Scottsboro trial though, two women were supposedly raped. Both trials happened in the same time period, while also noting that the women in both trials came from poor backgrounds. Atticus gave his all to his case while the nine young men’s lawyer also tried his best.
The 1900’s was a significant era for blacks, while a lot of laws were reformed and our rights were instated with distinct clarity, much loss was suffered to accomplish this. Two examples of such loss are the trial of Tom Robinson in the novel ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, and the trial of Scottsboro Boy. One a tale and one a tragedy, but both depict the inequity that was that justice system of the 1900s. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Robinson, is being tried for the rape of Mayella Ewell, daughter of Bob Ewell. In the trial of the Scottsboro boys, nine young black man were wrongfully incarcerated.
The Similarities between The scottsboro case and To Kill a Mockingbird From books to real life cases, one can see the American system of injustice towards the blacks of America and its lopsided juries. A system of which if you’re born of the wrong skin, you are judged with no crime being committed. A country where when you have a dark complexion, you are guilty until proven innocent. In To Kill a Mockingbird and Scottsboro boys, we meet different figures who all in common, are prejudice, racist, and ignorant. Even so, we still meet people who stand for what is right, especially since the evidence points towards their innocence.
Black men are six times as likely as white men to be incarcerated in federal prisons and local jails. This kind of injustice is the reason why cases like The Scottsboro Boys case, where nine boys were falsely accused of rape, exist. This is also why books like To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee are made. In both of these trials, they highlight the injustice of blacks during the 1930’s.
The Scottsboro Trials and To Kill a Mockingbird In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, the famous father named Atticus says “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb into his skin and walk around in it (Judith 2). This quote is said during a time of intense racism. “Not long after Obama took office, the National Urban League released its 2009 State of Black America report. The findings showed that racial inequities continued in employment, housing, health care, education, criminal justice, and other areas” (Buckley 1). This essay will primarily focus on the criminal justice area of this when discussing the Scottsboro trials and comparing the trials to the famous novel To Kill a Mockingbird.
The outcome of the court case displays that the people of Maycomb County would most likely agree with a white man with inconsistent evidence, rather than an African American man with logical statements. Bigotry and discrimination are also shown through many character’s
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).
The Scottsboro Trials and To Kill a Mockingbird In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, the famous father named Atticus says “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb into his skin and walk around in it (Judith 2). This quote is said during a time of intense racism. “Not long after Obama took office, the National Urban League released its 2009 State of Black America report. The findings showed that racial inequities continued in employment, housing, health care, education, criminal justice, and other areas” (Buckley 1). This essay will primarily focus on the criminal justice area of this when discussing the Scottsboro trials and comparing the trials to the famous novel To Kill a Mockingbird.
The Scottsboro Boys Trial certainly shows dramatic flaws in the United States legal since, besides the fact it took place in the peak of prejudice across the United States. In the year 1931, which was around the same time period that To Kill A Mockingbird took place, nine black teenagers were accused of beating up other white boys on the train, and most importantly blamed for the false rape of Victoria Price and Ruby Bates (Sorenson 5). There was no medical evidence as to whether the girls were raped or boys beaten, just the word of a white person being known as superior to a black person’s just like the trial of Tom Robinson (20). In the end of the three trials that went to the United States Supreme Court, the boys received a quick, speedy, unfair trial with unjust defense lawyers and the punishments that ranged from 75 years in prison to death (25). One boy was shot in prison when attempting to make an escape, which is almost identical to the circumstance of when Tom Robinson is shot to death when attempting to escape prison (48).
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.
During the same time period as the setting of To Kill a Mockingbird Alabama was faced with another legal matter that lead to social and political outrage, The Scottsboro Trials. Two white, young women illegitimately accused twelve, black young men of raping them, while on a train to Memphis (Belsches). Only nine of the accused were indicted. Due to the extreme Racism epidemic in the 1930?s the defendants were given an unfair trial. The trial lasted approximately three days and resulted in the ?
When it comes to the topic of justice, both historically and modern day, most will agree that injustices exist. However, three that notably mark society are the restrictions of the freedom of speech on a college campus setting, in Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, and in actions made by the Ku Klux Klan during American History. As more and more individuals become easily offended, they allow the feelings of others to extend rights guaranteed in The Constitution. One example of this lies in a college setting where students are forced to post all documents concerning religion or personal beliefs onto a small strip of concrete.
