Lynching laws/ Scottsboro Trials
Nathan B-D, Tyler M, John Mc
Lynching laws/ Scottsboro Trials
Lynching laws
Scottsboro Trials
The Scottsboro case a major U.S. civil rights controversy of the 1930’s surrounding the prosecution in Scottsboro Alabama, of nine black youths charged with the rape of two white women. After nearly being lynched, were brought to trial in Scottsboro in April 1931, just three weeks after their arrests.
Despite testimony by doctors who had examined the women that no rape had occurred, the all-white jury convicted the nine, and all but the youngest, who was 12 years old, were sentenced to death. The announcement of the verdict and sentences brought a storm of charges from outside the South that a gross miscarriage of justice had occurred in Scottsboro. The cause of the “Scottsboro Boys” was championed, and in some cases exploited, by Northern liberal and radical groups, notably the Communist Party of the U.S.A.