93 years: Remembering the Scottsboro Boys arrests and trial
SCOTTSBORO, Ala. (WHNT) — Monday, March 25 marked 93 years ago, nine black boys ages 13 to 19, known to the world as the Scottsboro Boys, were ‘hoboing’ on a freight car to find work to help their families and for a better life.
A fight broke out with white youths on that train, and the boys were arrested in the town of Paint Rock in Jackson County Alabama, as two white girls falsely accused the boys of rape.
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Just 13 days after their arrest, one of the most explosive trials in American history began. Eight of the nine boys were sentenced to death. A 13-year-old, Leroy Williams, was sentenced to life in prison.
Their arrests on that day and the ensuing trial hold many legal precedents that still exist in the justice system throughout the country.
“For the 13-year-old, this was the very first time leaving home,” explained William Hampton, founder of Huntsville Revisited Museum. “He was going to try and find work to help him, mama. These individuals’ lives were forever changed and then the ripple effect of all involved. Judges, of attorneys and jurors and the two teenage girls who accused them.”
The young men endured courtroom trials, convictions, retrials, and incarceration, collectively spending 130 years in Alabama’s jails and prisons for a crime they did not commit.
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“Not only 14th amendment rights violated but also building on cases like this where young people were treated as adults instead of children,” said Thomas Reidy, Executive Director of the Scottsboro Boys Museum. “They were being punished versus being rehabilitated in some way because they are so young.”
The retrials took place in Decatur, Alabama from 1933-1937. The first landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling case reversed the eight death sentences due to the denial of 14th Amendment rights (right to council). Defense attorney’s attacked Alabama’s jury system because blacks were excluded from from serving on the jury.
The legacy of the Scottsboro boys, referred to only because of where the first trial took place, endures in several U.S. Supreme Court decisions, mainly, recognizing Americans have the right to receive effective legal counsel.
“Previous law I could be pardoned but we did not have a law that would exonerate me. The Scottsboro Boys Act, which is now a law, ushered that in,” Hampton explained.
“The state of Alabama was determined to get these boys convicted,” said Reidy. “It had become far bigger than just sending these 9 young men to prison. It was about upholding Jim Crow culture and white supremacy.”
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Many of the hallmarks of their case still exist in the justice system today, such as a lack of access to competent legal counsel, prosecution of children in an adult court, the treatment of youth of color, lack of representative juries, and capital punishment.
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