Essay On The Scottsboro Trial And Tom Robinson's Trial

Sources: Remembering Scottsboro: The legacy of an infamous trial, The Trials of the Scottsboro boys, and Scottsboro and its legacy: The cases that challenged american legal and social justice.

A mockingbird is a harmless songbird that offers only its beautiful voice. To Kill a Mockingbird is a coming of age novel written by Harper Lee. This story took place in a small rural town called Maycomb County, in the 1930’s where everyone knew each other and all the townspeople were infected by a disease called gossip. This gossip harmed the “mockingbirds”, because all of them were “shot down” physically and metaphorically. Harper Lee implied that there were distinct characteristics that parallel mockingbirds. Arthur Radley, Tom Robinson, and Atticus Finch each represent mockingbirds in their own ways.

In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, the famous father named Atticus says “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb into his skin and walk around in it (Judith 2).  This quote is said during a time of intense racism. “Not long after Obama took office, the National Urban League released its 2009 State of Black America report. The findings showed that racial inequities continued in employment, housing, health care, education, criminal justice, and other areas” (Buckley 1).  This essay will primarily focus on the criminal justice area of this when discussing the Scottsboro trials and comparing the trials to the famous novel To Kill a Mockingbird.  In some schools, To Kill a Mockingbird is mandatory for students to read (“Harper Lee dies at 89: A quiet life, a lasting legacy-- see the photos” 2) however, in others it is banned.  Jon Stewart said there is a “gaping racial wound that will not heal, yet we pretend doesn’t exist” (Judith 2). There are similarities between the famous Scottsboro Trials and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.

The book “To Kill a Mockingbird” written by Harper Lee and the article “Scottsboro Boys Trial” both contain controversial court cases. For “To Kill a Mockingbird” a black male named Tom Robinson was accused of raping a white woman named Mayella Ewell. In the “Scottsboro Boys Trial” nine young black men and teenagers are accused of raping two white females named Victoria Price and Ruby Bates. Both cases transpired in the 1930s in Alabama. This is bad for the accused as racism was at an all-time in the 1930s especially in the deep south. This was around the time when the Jim Crow Laws were still intact and black people were not still considered people and they would still lynch black people. If a black man was accused of any crime involving a white person the jury would take the white man's word over the black man’s word. These exact things

During the 1930’s, the Great Depression caused poverty throughout the United States. People all over the country went to extreme measures to earn money and survive. Several people hopped on trains illegally to travel and try to start new lives for themselves. Some women resorted to prostitution around these hobo camps to earn their living. Two such women were Ruby Bates and Victoria Price. They prostituted around the South, trying to earn money, and then hopped on the moving trains to change location. As well as Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, nine African-American boys were riding on the same train as these two girls. Some white men tried to kick the boys off the train, and started a fight. The nine boys beat the men and threw them off the train. The train was stopped and a lynch mob was waiting the arrival of the boys. Price and Bates knew that they could get in trouble for their “occupation,” so they accused the boys of gang raping them. Many of the boys had never met each other before, and one of them even had Syphilis. This made the claim truly unbelievable, but because of their skin color, they were imprisoned. Fortunately, the boys received a trial that would soon change American history. The Scottsboro trial shaped our country because it uncovered extreme racism in the South, united blacks and

Nine boys Charlie Weems, Ozie Powell, Clarence Norris, Olen Montgomery, Willie Roberson, Haywood Patterson, Eugene Williams, and Andrew and Roy Wright were accused of raping two white women on a freight train, on March 24, 1931. The boys were caught for illegally riding on a freight train, and were originally charged with that until one of the police found the two white women VIctoria Price, and Ruby Bates and pressured them into saying that the boys had raped them on the freight tra in. All the Scottsboro boys were sentenced to death in the first trial, except Roy Wright who was only 13 was sentenced to life in prison. After two more trials with an all white jury, got the attention of the nation because it was showing how racist the U.S court system was. Ruby Bates eventually went out and retold her statement saying that she was pressured into telling the jury that the Scottsboro boys had raped them. She joined the fight to end the unfair and racist trial. The trial was taken to the Supreme Court in 1937, because it started to become a huge deal. Their lives were saved, but it took more than 20 years to get all the boys out of jail.

Altman, Susan. “Scottsboro Trial.” Encyclopedia of African-American Heritage, Second Edition, Facts On File, 2000. African-American History.

The fourteenth amendment to the Constitution, ending slavery in the United States, had been in effect since before the turn of the century, yet African Americans still faced prejudice in many parts of the country, especially the South. In March 1931, nine black teenagers were arrested in Alabama and accused of homelessness, disorder, and, later, rape, after two white women testified against them. The series of trials, testimonies, and decisions that followed all contained core similarities, but differentiated greatly from each other overall.

The Scottsboro Trials, in summary, was about nine young black men being accused of raping two young white women. Although, what really happened was one of the white girls stepped on one of the boys hands and they started fighting and throwing rocks.”8 out of the 9 boys were trialed with death” (Linder). The court during the time had a strong racial dislike for the black race. On January 1932, the court ruled 6-1 on all but one of the convictions. By the end, the main accuser, Ozie Powell, dropped the charges because later on, too much proof showed that the boys did not rape the two girls.

Although the Scottsboro trials was not a pivotal event in Black American history, it was an occasion which highlighted the severe injustice of the American legal system and prejudice that black Americans lived in. From 25th March 1931 when 9 black men allegedly gang raped two white girls on the Railroad from Chattanooga to Memphis, a numerous amount of trials, reversals and retrials occurred, the most in American history. Over the course of two decades the ‘Scottsboro boys’ were made celebrities by their struggle for justice by dividing Americas politics. The trials, which were originally conducted in front of an all white jury leading to 8 of the boys being sentenced to the death penalty, after they were represented by bias lawyers which made

There have been many rivalries over the years between Blacks and Whites. With white people acting as if they were superior to black people simply because of their skin color, and with white people treating black people as animals rather than human. They could have just used the zombie drug, it worked just fine. Humans in general have a tendency to segregate themselves from each other, whether it be skin color, the type of music they like to listen to, intelligence, or anything else, there is no excusable reason to force people to segregate. The Scottsboro trials challenged every known thought of black men and boys back in that time, and the impact it left was legendary.

The Scottsboro Case is the case of nine African-American teenagers brought before the Court of Alabama on charges of rape in 1931. The case became a landmark in the struggle against racism and a fair trial. The court had all white juries.

The Scottsboro boys trial was a 2 decade long legal battle about the rape of Ruby Bates and Victoria Price by 9 black teenagers. The conduct of Ruby Bates and Victoria Price raised 3 questions. First, what did the women say happened to them? Second, did the the women get caught lying during the trial? And third, how did the women’s story compared to the novel “To kill a mockingbird”?

Who are the blue jays and mockingbirds of To Kill A Mockingbird? Set in the early 1930’s of America, Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird is a coming-of-age book that tells the story of an innocent, naive child becoming an adult through the experience and intake of racism, discrimination, and social injustice throughout the book. Harper Lee’s development, usage and characterization of her characters throughout To Kill A Mockingbird help establish two of her most important themes of the book, which are the presence of social injustice and the coexistence of good and evil.

To Kill a Mockingbird is a story that takes place during the Great Depression in a small town located in southern Georgia in the 1930s. The book focuses on Jean Louise “Scout” and Jeremy Atticus “Jem” and their coming of age and the major events that made the two grow up. One of the events was the trial of the Mockingbird, Tom Robinson, in which their father, Atticus Finch, was defending Tom, a man of color. Mockingbirds are used throughout the book to represent people that were harmed by the society even though they were innocent. There is a common misinterpretation of the meaning behind the Mockingbird leading many to believe that Scout is the Mockingbird in the story. Even though Scout displayed innocence but still was excluded from games with Dill and Jem because of her gender, Harper Lee did not intend for her to be perceived as a Mockingbird. On the contrary, Tom Robinson and Boo Radley are portrayed as mockingbirds, birds recognized for their innocence but also targeted.