What Role Does Racism Play In The Scottsboro Trials
In the south back in the 1930’s there were many Americans who did not know the meaning of equality for all. With this being the case, many black people faced discrimination daily and it followed through to the legal systems especially in the south where both being compared took place. The evidence provided in both trials proved to be weak. Despite this, both defendants had determined lawyers who believed in justice.
Scottsboro Boys Case The Scottsboro Boys were nine African American teenagers, ages 13 to 20, accused in Alabama of raping two White American women on a train in 1931. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident dealt with racism and the right to a fair trial. The cases included a lynch mob before the suspects had been indicted, all-white juries, rushed trials, and disruptive mobs. It is commonly cited as an example of a miscarriage of justice in the United States legal system.
Scottsboro Trial Two young women is all it takes to create one of the most tragic epoch's of African-American history after the abolishment of slavery. When Victoria Price, and Ruby Bates decide to ride the rails to look for some incentive in their lives, they witness an opportunity to ruin nine young black boy's life. A fight broke out after a gang of white boys agitated, and tried to force a gang of black boys to jump off a train.
In the Scottsboro case, Victoria Price declared that nine African-American boys had raped her. Which, later on, in the many trials, people soon find out that she was lying. A definition of the word villain is, “in a film, novel, or play a character whose evil actions or motives are important to the plot”. In my opinion, Victoria Price’s actions make her a villain according to this definition. Firstly, Victoria is the reason for starting the madness and chaos from the case because she lied to everybody that she had been raped.
Throughout the 1800s and early 1900s, racism was still a huge part in our society and this is demonstrated through the Scottsboro Trial and the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The first place this is shown, was after everybody heard about the supposed rape of the white girls. There were protests and tons of people showing hate towards the black men. Another example of this, was all the assumptions white people made, that the only logical explanation for the incident was that the black men raped the white girls. This assumption was without listening to the evidence or facts proving the man's innocence during the trial.
In the history of the United States of America, there have been many situations in which a trial was unfair, both in the cases of state and federal indictments. However, none of these have measured up to the outrageous inequity and negligence by the Alabama legal system in 1930. This poses the question: to what extent did the Scottsboro Trial reveal the faults of the U.S. Judicial System? Going so far to tie back to the Constitution, the Scottsboro Trial violated many rights of these boys, regardless of race; even the judges and prosecution put the system to shame. Aside from years of trial, falsely incriminating evidence, and biased courts, the Scottsboro boys faced years of judges, prosecutors, and mobs trespassing on their basic human rights.
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.
In February 2012, a 28-year-old man followed a 17-year-old youth and killed him on a residential street. The youth hadn’t done anything; he did not commit a crime, and he hadn’t provoked the older man. He was shot simply because he seemed “suspicious.” This was the story of Trayvon Martin’s death in Sanford, Florida at the hands of George Zimmerman (Cooper). Zimmerman, the killer, is a white man while Trayvon was an innocent black youth.
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.
Racism is a huge indicator in acting unjustly, In Justice Served Ella Baker fought to end segregation for equal rights. Superiority can change a person’s opinion and impact on the situation. In the Storyteller Josef and other SS officers had superior power than the Jews.
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.
On April 22, 1992, three guilty criminals walked away innocent after committing heinous acts of aggression and assault. They were not punished after brutally beating an African American citizen after a meer traffic stop. This brutal act of racial profiling was forgiven in the name of systemic bias and societal attitudes towards racism and similar issues. The date in question is the day that the verdict of the Rodney King trial was released by the jury. The trial involved Rodney G. King a taxi driver who was pulled over for a traffic violation.
Racism/Discrimination: From Facts to Fiction Racism has been a big epidemic since the early 1600’s and is still a problem throughout society today. According to Dictionary.com, racism is a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to dominate others or that a particular racial group is inferior to the others. The Tortilla Curtain, by T.C. Boyle exemplifies racism and discrimination by the dividing of communities from the impoverished minorities and the superior majority. Boyle reveals how more fortunate people stereotype the way minorities and poverty live rather than acknowledging
The study of racism has a profound potential to become an ambiguous sociological endeavor. Incidentally, accounting for the multitude of factors which encompass this subject appear to make it the very heart of the matter and consequently the most time consuming. Although, it is my belief that all three of the main sociological theories (Functionalism, Conflict Theory and Symbolic Interactionism) should be integrated in order to achieve a legitimate and quantifiable outcome, for obvious reasons the “Conflict Theory” logically renders the best possible method to obtain a valid micro analysis of specific agents in this case. The oxford dictionary defines racism as being: prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior; a belief that all members of each race possesses characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.
Racism: a curse for the society INTRODUCTION:- "Racism is an ideology that gives expression to myths about other racial and ethnic groups that devalues and renders inferior those groups that reflects and is perpetuated by deeply rooted historical, social, cultural and power inequalities in society." Racism is one of the oldest truth around the world .Racism, is said to be as old as the human society. Racism is nothing but only the belief that all members of each race possess the characteristics, abilities, or qualities which are specific to that race, especially, so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races. And this differentiation change the people’s mentality and bring death among themselves.
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