Scottsboro Boys

Class Date: November 13th

Location: Your couch! See your weekly e-mail for Zoom link!

A Different Justice System

This week we look at the court cases that came out of the trials of the so-called ‘Scottsboro Boys’. Though most of the 9 youths didn’t even know each other, a series of unjust and unfortunate events would bring them together and change their lives forever. Before we tell their story, it is always helpful to review and understand how we arrived at such a vigilante-driven justice system. Let’s review the events that brought us there:

1793 - Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin

The cotton gin easily separated cotton from its seeds, making it a more lucrative crop to grow. The South would transition largely to growing cotton, reinforcing their reliance on slave labor to yield more profit.

1808 - Congress bans the importation of enslaved people

Many in Congress thought that banning the importation of more people would help limit slavery in the country and it would eventually die off as a practice. However, the 1793 invention of the cotton gin increased the demand for free labor across the South. Many slave owners encouraged families among their enslaved people, ensuring generations of free labor.

1831 - Nat Turner’s Revolt

Enslaved man, Nat Turner, led the only effective slave rebellion in the United States. He saw himself as anointed by God to lead his people from slavery, so he and some followers killed his owners, then set off to capture an armory and recruit more people. The group swelled to around 75 people and killed approximately 60 white slave owners over the span of 2 days before the state militia arrived and overwhelmed the group. Approximately 100 enslaved people were killed in the struggle. Nat Turner escaped, but was captured after 6 weeks and was hanged.

Fear ripped throughout the Southern states, and many legislatures strengthened their codes to limit education, movement, and gathering for enslaved people.

1849 - Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery

Harriet continued to back down into slave states, leading people out of slavery along the Underground Railroad. She became the most famous ‘conductor’ and proudly stated that she ‘never lost a passenger’. Harriet remains an important figure in the struggle for African American freedom and the rights of women.

1847 - Dred Scott Decision

The Supreme Court decided in Scott v. Sanford that enslaved people were not citizens and had no legal right to sue. Scott had been taken from the slave state of Missouri to the Illinois and Wisconsin territories, where slavery was outlawed. He argued that his removal to free soil made him free. The verdict effectively ruled that all territories were open to slavery and could only exclude it when they became states. While the Southern states were thrilled with the decision, abolitionists in the North were furious.

For a wonderful 11 minute review of the Supreme Court case, click here:

1865 - 13th Amendment is ratified

The Civil War ended in April of 1865, when Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. The 13th Amendment was passed in January of 1865, ending slavery, but it was not ratified until December of that year, after Lincoln had been assassinated. Section 1 of the 13th Amendment states:

Neither slavery no involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crive whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2 of the Amendment gives Congress the power to “enforce this article by appropriate legislation”, setting up the ability for Congress to pass future legislation to reshape the South without slavery.

1866 - White mob attacks Louisiana Constitutional Convention

Frustrated that the Louisiana Constitution did not extend voting rights to Black people, Progressive Republicans, with a mix of Black and white men, convened a convention to discuss reform. After the meeting, they met a group of Black marchers with a band. An armed group of whites set on the group, ultimately killing approximately 50 people, almost all of them Black.

1869 - John Willis Menard is the first Black man elected to Congress, but he is never seated

John Willis Menard ran in a special election to succeed the late James Mann, who represented New Orleans in the House of Representatives. Though Menard received 64% of the vote, his opponent, Caleb Hunt, contested the election. The House deemed that neither candidate was qualified and left the seat vacant for the remainder of the session.

1881 - Tuskegee University founded

The beginning of this Historically Black Colleges and University (HBCU) can actually be credited to Lewis Adams, a formerly enslaved man, who never received a day of formal education, though he could read and write. W.F. Foster was running for Alabama Senate reelection and asked Adams to help him with the support of the Black community. Instead of asking for money, Adams asked that Foster help establish an educational institution for the Black population. To read more about this and how they recruited Booker T. Washington to teach at the Institute, click here: https://www.tuskegee.edu/about-us/history-and-mission

1891 - First convention of the World’s Women’s Christian Temperance Movement

Women, tired of husbands and sons using much needed family funds to support their drinking habits, organized beginning in 1873. They asked owners of saloons to stop selling alcohol to their husbands and sons. The women were temporarily successful at ridding 250 villages and towns of liquor for a short while. However, when sales resumed, women organized into the National Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. The group circulated “The Petition”, asking world leaders to stand against alcohol traffic and opium trading and it made its first public appearance at a convention in Boston.

1896 - Plessey v. Ferguson

In 1892, Home Plessey, a man who had ⅛ Black ancestry, deliberately violated Louisiana’s Separate Car Act of 1890 and boarded a whites only train car. He was charged with violating the law and he pleaded not guilty, saying the law was unconstitutional. He took his case all the way to the Supreme Court. In May of 1896, in a 7-1 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment did not eliminate legal distinctions based on color. Essentially, the case established that “separate but equal” was legal, according to the Constitution.

1901 - American League of Major League Baseball declares itself a Major League

After one season as a minor league stemming from the minor WEstern League in 1899, ALMLB declares itself a Major League. Their eight charter teams were the Baltimore Orioles, Boston Americans, Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Blues, Detroit Tigers, Milwaukee Brewers, Philadelphia Athletics, and Washington Senators. 1901 was the first year of competition, competing against the senior National circuit.

1903 - St. Lukes Penny Savings Bank opened

Maggie Lena Walker (a past class subject) opened a bank in Richmon, Virginia, making her the first woman, of any color, to charter a bank. She believed that life improved for Black citizens when they were able to help and work for themselves. Her bank consolidated with two other Black owned banks during the Great Depression and managed to survive the economic downturn.

1905 - The Niagara Movement begins

A group of Black intellectuals, including W.E.B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter, formed an organization to call for civil and political rights for African Americans. The organization served as a frontrunner for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the civil rights movement. To read more about this group, please click here: https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/niagara-movement

1909 - NAACP Founded

A wave of race riots and the increasing pressures of segregation prompted prominent Black citizens to form a more permanent civil rights organization. Increased lynchings and the reporting done by journalists like Ida B. WellsW.E.B. Du Bois and other leaders formed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. To read more about this history, click here: https://naacp.org/about/our-history

1913 - Federal Segregation begins

President Woodrow Wilson, newly inaugurated, began implementing a policy of racial segregation across the federal government. A Southerner himself, he had appointed several segregationists to his Cabinet and they were eager to separate employees along racial lines. This action would prove to have far reaching consequences, especially on the economic development of the Black community. To read more about this program and these effects, click here: https://theconversation.com/segregation-policies-in-federal-government-in-early-20th-century-harmed-blacks-for-decades-145669

1916 - Marcus Garvey brought the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) to the United States

Jamaican-born Black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey disagreed with the leaders of the NAACP and advocated for Black citizens to join his “Back to Africa” movement. He claimed that racism was so ingrained, it was futile to fight against it and the only hope was to flee to Africa to build a country of their own. He did have some followers but it was ultimately an unsuccessful movement.

1920 - Harlem Renaissance

During the 1920s, Black Americans flocked to Northern cities like New York. To read more about this explosion in art and culture, check out this overview from the Met: https://mymodernmet.com/harlem-renaissance/

To watch a 15 minute video on the period, click here: https://youtu.be/FIRdvFfpDIA

1925 - The National Bar Association founded

The National Bar Association is the nation’s oldest and largest national network of predominantly Black attorneys and judges. The Bar seeks to improve the administration of justice and maintain the independence of the judiciary.

August 8, 1925 - The Klu Klux Klan marches in Washington, D.C.

Though the first iteration of the KKK was born in the wake of the Civil War, the second KKK was founded in 1915. Like its predecessor, it was deeply rooted in racism and violence. The ‘secret’ society had 3 million members by the early 1920s and they organized a march on the National Mall to counter rumors of faltering enrollment numbers. Roughly 40,000 Klan members, most of them with their faces showing, marched in Washington, D.C.

1929 - Stock Market Crash

Known as ‘Black Tuesday’, on October 29, 1929, investors traded some 16 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange and billions of dollars were lost. Thousands of investors were wiped out and the United States, as well as the rest of the industrialized world plunged toward the Great Depression, the longest-lasting economic downturn up to that point in the Western world. To read more about the crash, its causes, and the aftermath, click here: https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/1929-stock-market-crash

That is where our timeline leaves us for this week! Check below for additional reading resources and check your e-mail for a link to this week’s lecture!

Recommended Reading

For kids:

The Scottsboro Boys by James Haskins

For grades 8 and up. Documents the 1931 case in which nine black youths were accused of assaulting two white women in Scottsboro, Alabama, and brought to an infamous trial, in a blatant, racially motivated miscarriage of justice.

Accused! The Trials of the Scottsboro Boys: Lies, Prejudice, and the Fourteenth Amendment by Larry Dane Brimner

For grades 8 and up. This chilling and harrowing account tells the story of the Scottsboro Boys, nine African-American teenagers who, when riding the rails during the Great Depression, found their lives destroyed after two white women falsely accused them of rape. Award-winning author Larry Dane Brimner explains how it took more than eighty years for their wrongful convictions to be overturned.

In 1931, nine teenagers were arrested as they traveled on a train through Scottsboro, Alabama. The youngest was thirteen, and all had been hoping to find something better at the end of their journey. But they never arrived. Instead, two white women falsely accused them of rape. The effects were catastrophic for the young men, who came to be known as the Scottsboro Boys. Being accused of raping a white woman in the Jim Crow south almost certainly meant death, either by a lynch mob or the electric chair. The Scottsboro boys found themselves facing one prejudiced trial after another, in one of the worst miscarriages of justice in U.S. history. They also faced a racist legal system, all-white juries, and the death penalty. Noted Sibert Medalist Larry Dane Brimner uncovers how the Scottsboro Boys spent years in Alabama's prison system, enduring inhumane conditions and torture. The extensive back matter includes an author's note, bibliography, index, and further resources and source notes.

For Adults:

The Scottsboro Boys in Their Own Words: Selected Letters, 1931 - 1950, edited by Kwando M. Kinshasa

This is a collection of letters written by the nine African American defendants in the infamous March 1931 Scottsboro, Alabama, rape case. Though most of the defendants were barely literate and all were teenagers when incarcerated, over the course of almost two decades in prison they learned the rudiments of effective letter writing and in doing so forcefully expressed a wide range of perspectives on the falsity of the charges against them as their incarceration became a cause celebre both in the United States and internationally.

Central to this book is the chronologically structured presentation of letters (1931-1950), including some correspondence from attorneys and members of Scottsboro support committees. The original grammar, syntax and vernacular of the defendants are maintained in a desire to preserve the authenticity of these letters.

Scottsboro: A Tragedy of the American South by Dan T. Carter

Scottsboro tells the riveting story of one of this country's most famous and controversial court cases and a tragic and revealing chapter in the history of the American South. In 1931, two white girls claimed they were savagely raped by nine young black men aboard a freight train moving across northeastern Alabama. The young men-ranging in age from twelve to nineteen-were quickly tried, and eight were sentenced to death. The age of the defendants, the stunning rapidity of their trials, and the harsh sentences they received sparked waves of protest and attracted national attention during the 1930s. Originally published in 1970, Scottsboro triggered a new interest in the case, sparking two film documentaries, several Hollywood docudramas, two autobiographies, and numerous popular and scholarly articles on the case. In his new introduction, Dan T. Carter looks back more than thirty-five years after he first wrote about the case, asking what we have learned that is new about it and what relevance the story of Scottsboro still has in the twenty-first century.

Works Cited

https://www.infoplease.com/history/world/1800-1899-ad-world-history

https://www.ushistory.org/declaration/revwartimeline.html

https://www.ushistory.org/us/9f.asp

https://www.infoplease.com/history/world/1800-1899-ad-world-history

http://www.wwctu.org/pages/history.html

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/black-history-milestones

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