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Scottsboro trials racial discrimination
Racism in criminal justice system in the us ESSAY
The scottsboro trials essay
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On Mar 25, 1931, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, nine youths were wrongly convicted of rape. Combined, they had a total of 130 years in prison. They were on a train that is now called the Nine Scottsboro Boys, which includes Charlie Weems, 19, Ozie Powell 16, Clarence Norris 19, Andrew Wright 19, Leroy Wright 13, Olen Montgomery 17, Willie Roberson 17, Eugene Williams 13, and Patterson. There was also a white man and, lastly, 2 women, Ruby Bates (17) and Victoria Price (21). The white man stepped on the 18-year-old Haywood Patterson's hand.
They had spent years in prison! They had beaten the Jim Crow Laws. The Scottsboro Boys were innocent young men. Charlie Weems suffered from severe eye infection. Leroy Wright was not so fortunate.
Annotated Bibliography Altman, Susan. “Scottsboro Trial.” Encyclopedia of African-American Heritage, Second Edition, Facts On File, 2000. African-American History.
The chapters begin with a backstory of the victim before going into detail about the event that took place, then concluding with how the court case went and the public's reaction. This is effective due to the fact that it automatically draws the reader in by sharing the devastating stories, while also representing the horrors of this time period without delay. Throughout the chapters, various organizations such as the NAACP and WPC are discussed in order to further portray the significance of the events and the impact these men and women had on society. By concluding each chapter with summarizations of the outcomes of the court cases and/or the public's reaction, Societies transformation is slowly represented because as the chapters go on, the jury votes more in favor of the African American victims. This gives the reader insight into how the different assaults and cases gradually changed society, gaining more and more support for the civil rights movements cause, representing how these women and men's stories greatly influenced the outcome of this
In ‘The Convict Lease System,’ Frederick Douglass discusses the reasons why black people made up about ninety percent of convicts, which most of the blame for that is put on the whites in the essay. Why does Douglass say that the exclusion of black people from White religious institutions serves as a catalyst for their convictions and why does he also hold White people responsible for the conditions of this system? African-Americans were convicted in immense amounts during the 1880’s. Not only were they convicted, but they were also treated in a way that seemed to be a by-product of slavery. Black people were excluded from public locations and were “left up to grow up in ignorance and vice.”
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.
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.
Racism and Segregation in the South During the 1930’s, the Great Depression caused poverty throughout the United States. People all over the country went to extreme measures to earn money and survive. Several people hopped on trains illegally to travel and try to start new lives for themselves. Some women resorted to prostitution around these hobo camps to earn their living. Two such women were Ruby Bates and Victoria Price.
TKAM/Scottsboro- Final Paper Racism has been a major social issue in our modern world. From many years ago to today, there has been discrimination among many. Nine young african american men were accused of rapping 2 white women in 1931 (Scottsboro Boys) and a black man was accused of rape in To Kill a Mockingbird. The men were falsely convicted due to the fact that they were black men and the victims were white women.
Miscarriages of Justice in To Kill a Mockingbird and The Scottsboro Boys Trials The purpose of the judicial system is to protect citizens by holding the perpetrator of any crime to the full extent of the law and ensure that justice is served. This is a very noble notion however, the justice system has not always upheld these principles. There are numerous accounts in which the justice system has not lived up to serving any justice at all. This was especially true during the horrific case of the Scottsboro Boys. Through the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee depicts various similarities between the key figures involved in the historical case of the Scottsboro Boys and characters in the novel such as the courageous lawyers who represented
The Scottsboro Boys were just 9 victims during the time period. Nine young men, Clarence Norris, Charlie Weems, Ozie Powell, Leroy Wright, Olen Montgomery, Willie Roberson, Haywood Patterson, and Eugene Williams, were riding a train to Memphis, Tennessee in search of work. The boys ranged from 13-20 years old, and only 4 of them knew each other before the trials. (Salter) On the train, a fight broke out between a group of white men and the Scottsboro Boys.
After reading and viewing the racism pieces I conclude that many blacks were unfairly treated in crimes that they never did during the Scottsboro trials. The Scottsboro trial is a great example of how badly blacks were treated back during the Jim Crow Laws. The Scottsboro trial was about nine black boys aged twelve to seventeen who were falsely accessed of raping two white women on a train in Alabama. During the Great Depression, people would ride on train cars in search of jobs because there was such a shortage of them. So when the boys were getting out of the train, two white women claimed that they had raped them.
The Impact of the Scottsboro Boys on American History After watching the Scottsboro video, i came to the conclusion that the subject of it had an enormous outcome for the rest of history. Over the course of the Scottsboro boys trial, everything that happened sculpted both negative and positive events in this significant era. It affected thousands of lives, and impacted the rest of American history. Over hundreds of years, the theme of racism still continues until this day, we as Americans still experience the wrath of racism; maybe not as much, but it certainly hasn't gone away. All nine of the Scottsboro boys trials had an astonishing outcome on our nation and people, and it also portrayed many other events that happened in American history like World War ll, and the Civil Rights Movement.
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.
Throughout the time since it has been published, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird has kept a strong place in American society, being a novel that has been read over many generations. To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel that came to be in the right place at the right time, while The Color Purple is a weaker novel that did not have the same level relevance, and did not receive the same public reaction. Even though To Kill a Mockingbird’s setting is 30 years before its publication date, it could not have been more applicable to the 1960s because of its uncanny resemblance to the Scottsboro Trial. The rapid buildup to the Civil Rights Movement allowed To Kill a Mockingbird to be an impeccable reminder of the inequality and discrimination of the
