March 25, 1931, nine men hopped on to a freight train of no return (Uschan 10). Unjust, prejudice, and racist the Scottsboro Trials, were definitely not just another ordinary case. The Scottsboro Trials changed how America viewed segregation. The nine young men, who hopped onto that train that day, were innocent and harmless. The Scottsboro Trials revealed the unjust treatment that African Americans faced outside of the Harlem Renaissance and changed views on segregation.
Boarding the train from Chattanooga to Memphis seems like an innocent thing to do (“UMKC” par. 2). For the Scottsboro boys, boarding that train was one of the worst things they could have done. Two dozen whites and black road the train that day, and within the first 2 hours a fist fight broke out between the two races. The blacks won the fight, and the white men were thrown off the train and ran to the station master and reported that they had been assaulted by a gang of blacks on the train. Alabama stopped the train and dozens of men showed up and surrounded the train with guns in their hands. They took the nine African Americans aboard the train and put them into the Scottsboro jail (UMKC par. 2-5).
Two other people were on the train at that time too. Victoria Price and Ruby Bates were found on the train unexpectedly while the search men were looking for any more black citizens. The women identified themselves and then Ruby Bates told the search men “We’ve been raped. All those colored boys raped us.”(Uschan 14).This caused an uproar throughout America not because rape was a horrible crime, but because back then a white woman having sexual relations with a black man was considered one of the worst things a person could do. The act was considered so terr...
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... thing of the past. Racism is a very harsh and dangerous thing to participate in. Being racist can cause a person’s life to be in danger and it can ruin their life too. Helping African Americans understand that these racist people are sick and will be punished is just one way we can help the fight against racism.
And so, the Scottsboro Trials ended up being victorious. It changed how America felt about discrimination and segregation and opened up many opportunities for blacks. America has changed as a whole because of the Scottsboro Trials and racism is slowly fading away. Segregation has caused many hardships throughout history and finally, it ended partially because of the Scottsboro Trials. Soon, America will be a place where it is as if seclusion against African Americans never existed. African Americans are one of us and together we are America.
... She could not even explain exactly what happened at that time; rather, she kept saying ‘I do not know, but they raped me anyways.’ Besides, the medical evidence showing that they did not rape her and Bates should have been regarded as important proof, but it was useless to prove their innocence. Even the juries were all selected as the Whites, and there were some juries who were illiterate. These circumstances sound obviously unfair and tragic in that the unfair trials led all Blacks to being imprisoned.
On March 25, 1931, Victoria Price, a known prostitute, and Ruby Bates accused nine Negroes of raping them on a train in Northern Alabama. The trial took place in Scottsboro, amid much anti-black sentiment. An all white jury sentenced eight of the nine to death, despite the fact that one was blind and one could...
On March 25, 1931 nine African American youths were falsely accused and wrongfully imprisoned for the rape of two white girls. Over the next six consecutive years, trials were held to attempt to prove the innocence of these nine young men. The court battles ranged from the U.S Supreme court to the Scottsboro county court with almost every decision the same---guilty. Finally, with the proceedings draining Alabama financially and politically, four of the boys ...
Black liberation was stalled once again in 1961 and 1962, as white savagery reared its head again and black people were forced to deal with the reality that success was not inevitable, yet. Still more "sit-ins", "shoe- ins" were led to combat segregation in public places which were met with violent responses from some white people. These responses ranged from burning down a bus with black people to assaulting black passengers on a train car in Anniston. These racist white people also targeted other white people who were deemed as sympathizers to black struggle or "nigger lovers". Police refused to arrest the white aggressors and in some cases also refused to protect the black people. The Freedom Rides resulted in both losses and gains in the civil rights movement. People came to the realization that justice will not be won through merely trying to persuade Southern whites with peaceful protest but only "when
One of the most shocking racial crimes that ever took place in the United States occurred on October 17, 1981. That week a jury had been struggling to reach a verdict in the case of a black man, Josephus Anderson, accused of murdering a white policeman. The killing had occurred in Birmingham, Alabama, but the trial had been moved to Mobile, Alabama. Francis Hays, the second-highest Klan official in Alabama, and his fellow members of Unit 900 of the United Klans, knew that the presence of blacks on the jury meant that a guilty man would go. free.
“…and on the charge that the prisoner did with others to conspire to destroy the lives of soldiers in the military service of the United States in violation of the laws and customs of war-Guilty” were the words that soared out of Wallace’s mouth at the end of the trial. It was then that Henry Wirz was found guilty. Why? Why was he found guilty? This decision was based on the emotional aspect of the witnesses, and not by the actual guilt. Not only my defense, but also the defense of Wirz’s attorney, Baker, the testimony of the defendant, Henry Wirz, shows that Wirz should not have been found guilty.
When Samuel Leibovitz was hired as the attorney for the nine convicted boys, news of the trial spread to the north. People saw this trial as a blatant disregard for equality. Incensed by this injustice, Americans banded together to protest the prosecutor of the case, or the state of Alabama. During the myriad of rallies, people were not as concerned about their race as they were about the Scottsboro Boys. Both whites and blacks marched together to support the cause. Soon, the phrase, “Blacks and whites unite and fight!” became widespread throughout the rallies. Americans were able to overcome the petty issue of race and focus instead on injustice, bringing them closer together. This shows that the Scottsboro trials were not just a watershed legal matter, but also a significant step towards better race relations in America. Events in which blacks and whites would march side by side, uncaring of their backgrounds, were rare in the United States. Such an occurrence only happened once before. This was in the time of the abolitionist movement, an effort to free slaves almost sixty years before the inception of the Scottsboro trials. Therefore, this prominent series of trials brought together Americans of all races, and thus, impacted the nation
While talking to the police, the women accused all of the black men of raping them. These women were known prostitutes of the area, but their word was still taken over the black men who were accused. Twelve days later, the trial took place. There were many witnesses that held bias towards the black men. One acquaintance of the women was a white lady who refused to support the lies that were coming out of the white women's mouths.
...v. Ferguson. After Brown v. Board, the government could not support segregation because “Separate but equal” was not in effect. However, the most obvious and rewarding result of the case was the integration in public schools in the entire United States, even though the desegregation was a long process.
This included riding the rail lines in order to look for work in other cities. In the American South, the problems of economic downturn and the problems of racial tension met in 1931 during the court case of the Scottsboro Boys. On March 24th, 1931, nine African American boys (Olen Montgomery, Clarence Norris, Haywood Patterson, Ozie Powell, Willie Roberson, Charlie Weems, Eugene Williams, and brothers Andy and Roy Wright) hitched a ride on a train traveling from Chattanooga to Memphis in search of jobs.... ... middle of paper ... ...(http://governor.alabama.gov/newsroom/2013/11/governor-bentleys-statement-pardoning-scottsboro-boys/)
As time goes on, people have gone to great lengths to try to improve relations with blacks, and to fix the errors of the past. Laws have been made to try to give African Americans the same opportunities as whites, but as hard as people try, there is always going to be some ignorant people who will not obey these laws and make no efforts to be friends with them. If parents teach their children at young ages about racism, there might be a chance for the upcoming generations to live in a society where people are not judged by the color of their skin.
This term paper is on one of the most controversy discussion known as Capital Punishment. This is a topic in which the writer believes does not have a positive effect on decreasing crime in the world. For almost three years now, the writer has grown a passion for criminal behavior in some of the notoriety of a few crime cases that resulted in Capital Punishment and Wrongful Executions. One of my personal favorite crime cases in history is the Scottsboro Boys. This case represents an incident where five innocent African American men nearly faced execution after being accused and convicted of raping two white females on the back of a train back in 1931. This case is one of many reasons I am against capital punishment because it can lead to wrongful deaths of innocent men and women without justified evidences and witnesses. The writer is also
Dred Scott, an African American man who was born into slavery, wanted what all slaves would have wanted, their freedom. They were mistreated, neglected, and treated not as humans, but as property. In 1852, Dred Scott sued his current owner, Sanford, about him, no longer being a slave, but a free man (Oyez 1). In Article four of the Constitution, it states that any slave, who set foot in a free land, makes them a free man. This controversy led to the ruling of the state courts and in the end, came to the final word of the Supreme Court. Is he a slave or a free man?
They complained that the NAACP was trying to bring fear and hatred to the people by making this situation a race issue. Clearly they hadn’t seen the lynching of young Emmett till as a hate crime against blacks. On September 6th, The same day as tills funeral service, a grand jury in Mississippi met to indict Milam and Bryant for the kidnapping and murder of Emmett Till. They both plead innocent, and were held in jail until the start of the trial. The actual trial lasted only an hour an seven minutes. A white juror boasted that it wouldn’t have taken so long had they not stopped to drink coca cola. Whites were careless and insensitive to the seriousness of the case. The life of a teenage boy was dealt with like it mattered less than a worthless animal. Both, Milam and Bryant were not guilty and set free. This story went viral across the world, newspaper articles posted things like “the life of a negro isn’t worth a whistle” and other touchy headlines. Whitfield, S.
However, these African American citizens had remarkable courage to never stop, until these un-just laws were changed and they received what they had been fighting for all along, their inalienable rights as human beings and to be equal to all other human beings. Up until this very day there are still racial issues where some people feel supreme over other people due to race. That, however, is an issue that may never end. African Americans fought until the Jim Crow laws were taken out of effect, and they received equality for all people regardless of race. Along the way, there were many controversial court cases and important leaders who helped to take a stand against racial segregation.