Over the course of the two decades that followed, the struggle for justice of the ”Scottsboro Boys,” as the black teens were called, made celebrities out of anonymities, launched and ended careers, wasted lives, produced heroes, opened southern juries to blacks, exacerbated sectional strife, and divided America’s political left.
This video is about a story that is often overlooked in history books, but it is one that is both heartbreaking and inspiring. This is the story of Scottsboro Boys.
On March 25, 1931, nine African American teenagers were accused of raping two white women aboard a Southern Railroad freight train in northern Alabama. Haywood Patterson, Olen Montgomery, Clarence Norris, Willie Roberson, Andy Wright, Ozzie Powell, Eugene Williams, Charley Weems and Roy Wright were searching for work when a racially-charged fight broke out between passengers. The fight is said to have started when a young white man stepped on the hand of one of the Scottsboro Boys.
The young white men who were fighting were forced to exit the train. Enraged, they conjured a story of how the black men were at fault for the incident. By the time the train reached Paint Rock, Alabama, the Scottsboro Boys were met with an angry mob and charged with assault. Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, two white women who were also riding the freight train, faced charges of vagrancy and illegal sexual activity. In order to avoid these charges, they falsely accused the Scottsboro Boys of rape.
Only four of the young African American teen knew each other prior to the incident on the freight train. The teens ranged in age from 13 to 19. None were Alabamans; they were from Georgia and Tennessee. They were heading to towns to seek work with decent wages. Two of them, Andrew and Leroy Wright, were brothers.
They had not been to Scottsboro or were even born there, but as the trials drew increasing regional and national attention they became known as the Scottsboro Boys.
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