Scottsboro Boys In The 1930's

The Scottsboro trials were one of the most blatantly obvious examples of racially corrupted systems in the 1930’s. Nine boys were convicted, not on evidence, but on the color of their skin. There were many appeals and retrials, but for these boys, honest justice was served too little too late. The boys faced a corrupt system made up of unfair trials, several appeals, two completely different judges, and they were not pardoned until eight of the nine were dead forty-six years later. The stories of the Scottsboro Boys did not start with the trials, or even on the train.They each have their own stories and lives back home. Haywood Patterson was one of the most well known Scottsboro Boys. Patterson was eighteen at the time he was accused of rape …show more content…
The Southern Railroad freight train that was transporting these eight boys at the time was also being used as transportation for Victoria Price, Ruby Bates, and their men. Hoboing was a common pastime in the Depression year of 1931. And for these boys, riding trains was an adventure that was taking them to a place to find jobs. Soon after the train crossed the Alabama border, a white man walked across the top of the train and stepped on Haywood Patterson’s hand. He was hanging off the side. Patterson had friends on the train, and soon a rock-throwing fight erupted. Eventually, the eight black boys succeeded in forcing all but one of the white members of the train, Orville Gilley, whom Patterson pulled back up because the train was now going too fast to push him off. The station master in Stevenson saw everything, and called in to report what he called an “assault by blacks”. A group in Paintrock, Alabama rushed the train, and dozens of armed men rounded up every black youth they could find. These nine captured black boys soon became known as the Scottsboro Boys. The boys were taken to jail, and the nine ranging in age from twelve to nineteen were accused of a crime that never