Ignorance And Prejudice In The Scottsboro Case

Scottsboro argumentative response Ignorance and prejudice seems to plague the Southerners and this idea of ignorance and prejudice is exemplified in this case. In 1931, Haywood Patterson and eight other African American teenagers were falsely charged for rape and all the boys also received the death sentence after accommodating a train with the victims Ruby Bates and Victoria Price. Haywood Patterson is innocent due to three reasons, no evidence of rape from the doctor’s notes, Victoria Price and Ruby Bates were prostitutes, and Ruby Bates claimed that Victoria and her were lying the whole time. Admittedly, Haywood Patterson is guilty. However he is not guilty of rape, since he is only guilty of assault on the white boys. Two important discoveries that support this is that the doctor’s notes reveal no evidence of rape. Dr. R. R. Bridges, the Scottsboro doctor who examined the girls, tested that the rape victims only had dead semen and there were no traces of semen that were alive, which should of been an indicator of rape. Dr. R. R. Bridges also found that the girl’s heart rates seemed to not be elevated after the supposed rape. This is another indicator of rape which the girls

The “Fact Sheet” states that the victims were prostitutes and they wanted money, which suggests that accusing the boys of rape during the Great Depression would bring in a lot of money for winning the case due to pity and weak knowledge to the case. According to the “Fact Sheet” These women were also sleeping with their boyfriends, Lester Carter and Jack Tiller, in a hobo jungle prior to the supposed rape. This exemplifies that the women were desperate for money during the Great Depression and they wanted to get money from winning the case. The intercourse between the girls’ boyfriends is not valid evidence for rape, however it is evidence of intercourse which is stated in Dr. R. R. Bridges