If Southern white men are not careful, they will overreach themselves and public sentiment will have a reaction; a conclusion will then be reached which will be very damaging to the moral reputation of their women. – Ida B. Wells-Barnett, The Red Record
I saw a headline.
Nine Black Teens Falsely Accused of Rape in Alabama
And I thought, well, hush my puppies, that doesn’t barely begin to tell the story. Maybe good enough for a Florida history class. But not on my watch.
On March 25, 1931, nine Black teenagers riding a freight train through Alabama and north toward Memphis, Tennessee, were arrested after being falsely accused of raping two white women. After nearly being lynched, they were brought to trial in Scottsboro, Alabama.
Despite evidence that exonerated the teens, including a retraction by one of their accusers, the state pursued the case. All-white juries delivered guilty verdicts, and all nine defendants, except the youngest, were sentenced to death. From 1931 to 1937, during a series of appeals and new trials, they languished in Alabama’s Kilby prison, where they were repeatedly brutalized by guards.
In 1932, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded in Powell v. Alabama that the Scottsboro defendants had been denied adequate counsel at trial. In 1935, in Norris v. Alabama, the Court again ruled in favor of the defendants, overturning their convictions because Alabama had systematically excluded Black people from jury service.
Source: Equal Justice Initiative.
On March 25, 1931, the Southern Railway line between Chattanooga and Memphis, Tennessee, had nine black teenage males riding on a freight train with several white males and two white women.
A fight broke out between the white and black groups near the Lookout Mountain tunnel, and the whites were kicked off the train. The whites went to a sheriff in the nearby town Paint Rock, Alabama, and claimed they were assaulted by the Black Americans on the train. The sheriff gathered a posse and gave orders to search for and “capture every Negro on the train.”
The posse arrested all black passengers on the train for assault.
The black teenagers were: Haywood Patterson (age 18), who claimed that he had ridden freight trains for so long he could light a cigarette on the top of a moving train; Clarence Norris (age 19), who had left behind ten brothers and sisters in rural Georgia; Charlie Weems (age 19); brothers Andy Wright (age 19) and Roy Wright (age 12), who were leaving home for the first time; the nearly blind Olen Montgomery (age 17), who was hoping to get a job in order to pay for a pair of glasses; Ozie Powell (age 16); Willie Roberson (age 16), who suffered from such severe syphilis that he could barely walk; and Eugene Williams (age 13). Of these nine teenagers, only four knew each other prior to boarding the train.
Two white women who were also aboard the train, Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, told a member of the posse that they had been raped by a group of black teenagers. The posse brought the women to the jail where the accused were being held, and they identified them as their attackers. A doctor was summoned to examine Price and Bates for signs of rape, but none was found. A widely published photo showed the two women shortly after the arrests in 1931.
There was no evidence (beyond the women’s testimony) pointing to the guilt of the accused, yet that was irrelevant due to the prevalent racism in the South at the time, according to which black men were constantly being policed by white men for signs of sexual interest in white women, which could be punishable by lynching.
Price and Bates may have told the police that they were raped to divert police attention from themselves. They were both suspected of being prostitutes and not only risked being arrested for it, but they could also have been prosecuted for violating the Mann Act by crossing a state line “for immoral purposes.”
In the Jim Crow South, lynching of black males accused of raping or murdering whites was common; word quickly spread of the arrest and rape story. Soon a lynch mob gathered at the jail in Scottsboro, demanding the youths be surrendered to them.
Sheriff Matt Wann stood in front of the jail and addressed the mob, saying he would kill the first person to come through the door. He removed his belt and handed his gun to one of his deputies. He walked through the mob and the crowd parted to let him through. Wann was not touched by anyone. He walked across the street to the courthouse where he telephoned Governor Benjamin M. Miller, who mobilized the Alabama Army National Guard to protect the jail. Wann took the defendants to the county seat of Gadsden, Alabama, for indictment and to await trial. Although rape was potentially a capital offense in Alabama, the defendants at this point were not allowed to consult an attorney.
The prisoners were taken to court by 118 Alabama guardsmen, armed with machine guns. It was market day in Scottsboro, and farmers were in town to sell produce and buy supplies. A crowd of thousands soon formed. Courthouse access required a permit due to the salacious nature of the testimony expected. As the US Supreme Court later described this situation, “the proceedings … took place in an atmosphere of tense, hostile, and excited public sentiment.” For each trial, all-white juries were selected. There were few African Americans in the jury pool, as most had been disenfranchised after the Reconstruction era by a new state constitution and white discriminatory practice, and were thus disqualified from jury service.
I am betting ‘a few African Americans’ is a bold exaggeration.
And then this happened.
Bates proceeded to testify and explained that no rape had occurred. She said none of the defendants had touched her or even spoken to her. When asked if she had been raped on March 25, 1931, Bates said, “No sir.”
When asked why she had initially said she had been raped, Bates replied, “I told it just like Victoria did because she said we might have to stay in jail if we did not frame up a story after crossing a state line with men.”
Bates explained that Price had said, “she didn’t care if all the Negroes in Alabama were put in jail.”
This recantation seemed to be a severe blow to the prosecution.
So, let’s just skip all the legal mumbo-jumbo and go right to the finish. Because I am a law school drop out – “Better Call Crime Dog.” And this breaking news. Donald Trump was handed a financial lifeline as a New York court lowered his bond to $175 million as he appeals the $454 million judgment against him.
The same day in history. March 25. The Scottsboro Boys and America’s 45th President linked forever.
Kinda like the Donald Trump and the Central Park Five, come to think about it.
What followed was a bunch of legal precedent I won’t bother to bore you with.
Our current USA Supreme Court doesn’t care about precedent, so why should I?
But I do care what happens to innocent people. NOT looking at you, Donald.
Haywood Patterson testified on his own behalf that he had not seen the women before stopping in Paint Rock; he withstood a cross-examination from Knight who “shouted, shook his finger at, and ran back and forth in front of the defendant.” At one point, Knight demanded, “You were tried at Scottsboro?” Patterson snapped, “I was framed at Scottsboro.” Knight thundered, “Who told you to say that?” Patterson replied, “I told myself to say it.”
Following his conviction, Haywood Patterson spent 13 years in prison. He escaped in 1949 and in 1950 was found in Michigan, but the governor refused to extradite him. He wrote a book about his experience, Scottsboro Boy. In 1951 he was convicted of manslaughter over stabbing someone in a bar fight and sentenced to prison, where he died of cancer in 1952.
In 1936, Ozie Powell was involved in an altercation with a correction officer and shot in the face, suffering permanent brain damage. He was paroled in 1946 following his conviction for assault. He was reported to have died in Atlanta in 1974.
Charlie Weems was paroled in 1943 after having been held in prison for a total of 12 years in some of Alabama’s worst institutions. While Weems did end up getting married and working in a laundry in Atlanta, his eyes never recovered from being tear gassed while in prison. He was reported to have died not long after his release due to tuberculosis.
Andy Wright was convicted and sentenced to 99 years. He was paroled and returned to prison after violating parole. He was paroled in New York State in 1950. By the mid-1950s, he seemed to have settled for good in Connecticut. He remained in contact with Clarence Norris for a few years and planned on Norris reuniting with younger brother Roy, but after Roy’s death, Norris never saw Andy again. It is speculated that after Roy’s death, Andy returned to his hometown of Chattanooga to be with his mother Ada Wright.
Clarence Norris was the only defendant finally sentenced to death. Governor Bibb Graves of Alabama in 1938 commuted his death sentence to life. Given parole in 1946, he “jumped” and went into hiding.
In 1976 he was found in Brooklyn, New York, married with children. In 1970 he began seeking a pardon, with the help of the NAACP and Alabama’s attorney, and Governor George Wallace pardoned him in 1976, declaring him “not guilty”. Norris published an autobiography, The Last of the Scottsboro Boys (1979). He died of Alzheimer’s disease on January 23, 1989.
In 1937, the state dropped all charges for Willie Roberson, Olen Montgomery, Eugene Williams, and Roy Wright, who had already been in prison for six years.
Roberson settled in Brooklyn and found steady work. He remained in contact with Montgomery throughout the years. While planning a visit with former cellmate Norris, it was discovered by the two men that Roberson died of an asthma attack in 1959, the week prior to their reunion.
Olen Montgomery attempted a vaudeville career after being released from prison, but these plans never materialized. He drifted around in the North, working odd jobs and struggling with a drinking problem. He remained in contact with Clarence Norris, Willie Roberson, and the Wright brothers. After Roberson and Wright died in 1959, he told Norris he planned on returning to the south. He did so within the next year, and reportedly died in Alabama in 1975.
Eugene Williams moved with family in St. Louis. His family planned on him going to Seminary school, but whether this happened is uncertain. Where and when Eugene Williams settled and died is unknown.
After Alabama freed Roy Wright, the Scottsboro Defense Committee took him on a national lecture tour. He later had a career in the US Army and Merchant Marine. In August 16, 1959, believing his wife had been unfaithful during his tour, he shot and killed her, and then shot himself.
In 2013, the state of Alabama issued posthumous pardons for Patterson, Weems, and Andy Wright.
SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA.