In 1931, a group of African-American boys were tried and convicted of a crime that none of them had committed. The nine young, black males had been riding the rails looking for work when a fight broke out between them and a group of white boys. The youths were arrested for vagrancy then tried for the false accusation of rape. The case of the Scottsboro Boys showed the true minority injustice of the South do to the Jim Crow Laws.
There were a total of nine African American boys that were arrested in Paint Rock, Alabama. These boys were the ages of 13 to 20. The four boys that boarded in Tennessee were Haywood Patterson, Eugene Williams, and the two brothers, Andy and Roy Wright. All four of these boys jumped onto the freight train in Chattanooga, Tennessee
…show more content…
Prior to boarding the train from Chattanooga, he worked in a grocery store (Linder). The other five Scottsboro boys were already on the train when it reached Tennessee. Charles Weems, Clarence Norris, Ozie Powell, Olen Montgomery, and Willie Roberson all boarded the Chattanooga train in various parts of Georgia (Aretha 13). Charles Weems was the eldest of all the Scottsboro Boys at age 19. Weems boarded the freight train in Atlanta, Georgia. Childhood was rough for Weems. His mother had passed away when he was only four and only one of his seven siblings had survived childhood. Weems finished the fifth grade before taking a job in a local pharmacy. Clarence Norris was the second boy to board the train. Norris had attended school until the second grade, then began working in the cotton fields, where he worked up to 16 hours. He decided to hit the rails after his girlfriend had left him at age 18. Ozie Powell was another boy to hop on the train in Georgia. Powell only had one year of schooling. His IQ measured at “64-plus”, meaning he could only write his name. Powell had spent about three years working in lumber camps prior to his arrest. He was described as quiet, shy, and