Scottsboro Trial

Many people are unaware of the trial of nine innocent black boys. What started as a quiet train ride turned into a disaster in a matter of hours. A gang of white men started fighting with the nine black men. After the fight died down, word had still gotten around about it. At the next stop, which was Paint Rock, Alabama, a horde of white men were waiting with chains, ropes, and other weapons. Their plan was to beat the boys.

Surprisingly, once the train stopped in the small town, two women Victoria Price and Ruby Bates came forward stating that the nine black boys raped both of them. The black men were taken away and put into a prison. Afterwards, they were put on trial in Scottsboro, Alabama. The attorney presenting the boys to begin with cost sixty dollars, which the boy’s mother’s got together, and he told the boys to just plead guilty to get it over with.

The communist party brought up how unfair it was that they weren’t allowed to have a better defense, for everyone is allowed an equal trial. That being said, Samuel Liebowitz took control. Liebowitz is a hot shot attorney from New York. Out of seventy-eight cases, he won seventy-seven. The one case, that he had lost thus far, the verdict was a hung jury. For the prosecution, Thomas Knight, took the case. He was Alabama’s attorney general.

Judge Horton was the judge on the bench for the first three trials. All of them proclaiming that the boys were all guilty, and sentenced to death. After the third trial though, he noticed something that just didn’t seem right. He took note of somethings that just didn’t add up. During the course of the trial Ruby Bates went missing, but Victoria still stood on the stands. After the supposed “rape” she had a medical exam. During the exam the doctor found no signs of a struggle, like she had claimed beforehand. The doctor did in fact find semen, but it was dead. If nine men had had sex with her then an hour later, the semen would not be dead. She claimed the night before that she did not have intercourse with Lester Carter, her boyfriend, but after he took the stand, he stated that she was wrong, and that yes, they had.

When the judge wanted to have a fourth trial, after realizing the mistake, he was taken of the bench, to never serve the court as a judge again. The south also influenced Liebowitz to step down. He realized that he wasn’t helping the case as much as he had thought. After all, he was a Jew, a Yankee, and they saw every shot he took at Victoria as a shot to their southern culture and way of life. The southerners were already bruised by the north after being beat in the civil war. Being beat in the courtroom was almost too much to bear. Also, verbally abusing one of their women wasn’t taken too kindly either. Along with other changes in the case, it was brought to the Supreme Court’s attention that there was an all white jury for all of the trials. In the books of people eligible, there were only a few black men’s names scrawled hastily at the bottom of the pages.

At the trial, Ruby Bates, after being hunted down, became a witness for the defense. She turned out to not be such a good idea, though. She said that she had been paid by the communist party to speak. People came to the conclusion that she was lying now, rather than beforehand. At the end of the fourth trial, four of the men were free. One was blind, another had syphilis so bad that he could barely walk, and the two others were thirteen. The other five were kept in jail. Slowly, years passed after the trial. After a long time, the boys were being pardoned, one by one, every couple of years. After many, many years had passes, there was still one man left in jail; the one that people thought was most convincing and tough looking, Clarence Norrance. Eventually, he got tired of working and being held up in jail. So finally, he escaped to the north.

After the boys were released, they lead chaotic lives; whether it was killing people, killing themselves, or causing havoc. By the time Clarence was free and pardoned, everyone else was dead. He raised a family of his own, and was the only one who led a good life aster the fact. It may not be glamorous or People Magazine material, but this is a part of our American history. Bigotry is what got those boys into that mess. Sure, people say we’ve come along way, and we have, but the question is “Are we wiling to go farther?” Only time can tell us the answer.