Prejudice In The Scottsboro Boys

During the mid nineteen thirties there was ample prejudice from whites towards African Americans. This prejudice was greatly depicted in one particular case of nine young black men. The Scottsboro Boys were labeled as outcasts and faced a considerable amount of prejudice during their trials for a crime they had not committed; although some of the nine Boys were exonerated during the trials, the last of the Scottsboro Boys were not redeemed until decades later. On March 25, 1931, during the height of the Great Depression, a group of nine black boys, later known as the Scottsboro Boys, was traveling on a train towards Memphis, Tennessee, in search of work. The Boys’ names were Haywood Paterson, Eugene Williams, Roy Wright, Andy Wright, Clarence Norris, Charlie Weems, Olen Montgomery, Ozie

All was calm on the train until a white boy began to harass Patterson and Williams and push them off the train. Patterson defended himself and his friends when the white boy continued the harassment (Aretha 11-12). Twenty-one-year-old Victoria Price and seventeen-year-old Ruby Bates were also traveling on the train at the time it was stopped in Paint Rock, Alabama. The two white millworkers were also in search of work. Both girls came from poverty-stricken families (Sorensen 10). Bates spoke with the sheriff after she exited the train and accused nine black men of raping her and her friend, Victoria Price. During that time period in the South, an accusation of rape would have almost always led to the death penalty. It was also common for blacks who were accused of rape to be hanged before even going to trial (Aretha 15-16). The trials of the Scottsboro Boys are a key piece of history of the United States legal system because “No crime in