Group+3--Scottsboro+Boys+Tribute

__**Group 3 Scottsboro Boys Tribute**__ Alaurah Alderson- Trials Shea Parkin- Summary Jenni Beck- Challenges and Outcome Jon Lona- History

T he Trials Two white girls accused nine black boys of rape. The case was first heard in Scottsboro, Alabama. The nine boys were Charles Weems, Clarence Norris, Andy Wright, Ozie Powell, Olen Montgomery, Eugene Williams, Willie Roberson, Roy Wright, and Haywood Patterson. All but 12 year old Roy Wright were sentenced to death, but the American Communist Party appealed their case. The Alabama Supreme Court confirmed 7 of the 8 convictions. They granted 13 year old Eugene Williams a new trial because he was a juvenile. The case was returned to the lower court. The judge allowed a change of venue, moving them to Decatur, Alabama. Judge Horton was appointed. The jury found the boys guilty of the trial. After that the Judge granted a new trial, and each verdict was that the boys were guilty. There were three trials altogether. Eventually, charges were dropped for 4 of the 9 defendants. The rest of the boys had a sentence of 75 years to death. All of the boys except two served prison sentences. Clarence Norris, the oldest boy, was sentenced to death he escaped parole and then went into hiding in 1946. One of the alleged victims admitted to making up and fabricating the story and that none of the Scottsboro boys never touched them. The communist party stepped into the trials because they thought the jury did not have enough evidence that the boys had rapped the girls. The communist people also had respect for the African Americans.



__ History. __ The Scottsboro Boys were nine black teenage boys accused of raping two white women named, Ruby Bates and Victoria Price in Alabama, 1931. On March 25, 1931 nine black boys were hoboing on a freight train traveling between Chattanooga and Memphis, Tennessee. Several white boys jumped off the train and reported that they have been attacked by nine black boys. When a sheriff stoped a train in Paint Rock, Alabama, the nine black boys were found and arrested for hoboing, but things changed when two white girls got off the train also. A doctor examined the two girls and found dead semen in both of them. The semen did not come from any of the nine black teens, it came from Ruby and Victoria's boyfriends. The Scottsboro Boys, as they became known at the time, they were being defended by many whites and blacks from the north, but were being attacked by many whites from the south. Patterson escaped from prison in 1948, but was sent back to prison for stabbing a man after a bar fight. Norris jumped parol in 1946 and went into hiding, after that he married and had two children. Andy was sent back to prison after being paroled in 1937, for violating parole, the released in 1950. Weems was paroled in 1943 after serving 12 years in some of the worst prisons. Powell was shot in the face after cutting an officer with a pocket knife, he was released from prison in 1946. All charges were dropped for Roberson, Montgomery, Williams, and Roy Wright. Roy Wright joined the army and then married, when he came back he thought his wife was unfaithful, then shot her before taking his own life. Patterson stayed in prison and was sent to different prisons with some other Scottsboro Boys.


 * = Accused ||= The Victims ||
 * = Andy Wright, age 19 ||= Ruby Bates, age 17 ||
 * = Clarence Norris, age 19 ||= Victoria Price, age 21 ||
 * = Haywood Patterson, age 18 ||=  ||
 * = Olen Montgomery, age 17 ||=  ||
 * = Ozie Powell, age 16 ||=  ||
 * = Willie Roberson, age 16 ||=  ||
 * = Charlie Weems, age 16 ||=  ||
 * = Eugene Williams, age 13 ||=  ||
 * = Roy Wright, age 12 ||=  ||

The Scottsboro Boys, 9 black teenage boys, were accused for rape in 1931, in Alabama. They were accused because of racism. In the Scottsboro Boys’ Trial in the court house, there were only white people on the jury, and the trials were rushed. See the chart above for the names of the victims and the accused. On March 25, 1931, people were hoboing on a freight train. They were traveling in between Chattanooga & Mephis, Tennessee. Some white boys jumped off the train. Ruby Bates and Victoria Price reported to the sheriff that all nine black teenage boys attacked them. Ruby and Victoria were 2 white girls who said that the boys raped them. This was near the Lookout Mountain Tunnel. The sheriff got told to “capture every Negro on the train.” The doctor examined Ruby and Victoria, said it couldn’t have been the Scottsboro Boys because the sperm wasn’t moving. But they found sperm from a prior relationship, that “rape.” If it was the boys’, the sperm would have been moving because the doctor examined then about on an hour after they said they have been raped. One out of the nine boys Roy Wright got sentenced to death. Victims said that none of those Scottsboro Boys never touched the girls. They were all guilty. Four out of the nine Scottsboro Boys had their charges dropped. Sentences ranged from 75 years to death. Two served prison time. One was shot by a guard. Two escaped. The last of the Scottsboro Boys died in 1989. [] **__Complications and Outcomes__** **Many problems cames off the trials. Complications were based on race, sexuality, religion, changing back stories, and and a mysterious disapearences.** > When the girls were pulled off of the train and rape tested the seamen in the microscope was not moving, proving that the boys could not have raped them in the time frame given. Ruby and Victoria were known prostitutes who would sleep around with blacks and whites for food and clothing. > Bates wrote her then boyfriend, Earl Streetman, a letter in which she denied having been raped: "those Negroes did not touch me....i hope you will believe me the law dont....i wish those Negroes are not Burnt on account of me." > [] > Bates was a surprise witness for the defense in the second Haywood Patterson trial. She recanted her story of the rape, saying she was encouraged by Price to make the false accusation as a way of deflecting attention from possible charges of vagrancy or Mann Act (crossing state lines for immoral purposes) that they otherwise may have faced when they were among those rounded up by the posse in Paint Rock. > [] > One boy was shot by a prison guard, two actually served prison time, and another two served jail time for trying to escape prison
 * **Being that bit was the 1930s south most of the citizens were racist. In result, nine African American boys being accused raing young woman, no matter how masculine they were would result in quick judgments.**
 * Black men were assumed to always be wanting to have sex with white woman.A lynching mob soon crowded the first jail they were brought to in Scottsboro. The Sherrif, Matt Wann, adressed the mob and said he would the first person who tried to pass him.
 * The defense atournies were all white
 * The lawyer of the boys, Samuel Leibowitz, was hated because he was a Jew in the Southern Bible Belt. He recieved death threats when he cross-examined the victin Victoria Price. He had 5 National Guard members with him when out in public during the trial.
 * ** Perhaps the biggest problem that came across was the disappearance of Ruby Bates who had ran off to New York for a few years. When she was brought back it appeared she had been paid of by her clothes.

Alaurah, Shea, and Jon’s Source. [] Jenni's Source http://mayfieldfhs.wikispaces.com/2nd-The+Scottsboro+Boys