...My drama class went to watch a play called the Scottsboro Boys on the 19th November. I had never seen a live play before, well a professional live play so I didn’t know what to expect when I went to watch this with my drama class. I knew a little bit about the story as our teacher had previously explained the main parts of the story a few weeks back, for e.g. that the Scottsboro boys were 9 black boys accused of rape in Alabama in 1931 but it turned out that they were wrongly accused by two white women and were actually innocent. Through that explanation from my teacher I knew it was cases like that, that ultimately sparked the Civil Rights Movement. I had studied the Civil Rights Movement briefly in secondary school in History but not thoroughly. I know about specific leaders involved in the Civil Rights Movement for e.g. Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, and Robert F. Williams etc. In secondary we looked at how their work influenced the way society is today and how the world is today. In the performance I was mainly eager to see how they would take a story that so many people look back on and see it as nothing but a racist act towards black people and turn into something that we would be able to not only understand but enjoy as well without feeling anger. At first I never knew it was a musical until a few days before the play but generally I love musicals as I love music myself so it was very exciting to know the play was a musical. When I entered the theatre, I noticed that...
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...Kander and Ebb’s Scottsboro Boys was a gutty, heart-wrenching, laughter-ensuing conglomeration of a performance dealing with the prejudiced climate of the American South in the early 20th century. The story centered around a group of young black men who were falsely accused rape, leading to an uphill battle which could only be ended with death. Aside from the quite scene with a woman on a park bench, the production starts off with an energetic, in–your-face vigor as 11 black actors enthusiastically engage the audience from the side aisles as they bounce around on to the stage. The music was powerful and the choreography was intensely sharp, while preserving its element of swagger. The introductory sequence foreshadowed what looked like was going to be a fun and wild ride. And while the ride was wild and fun, the show gradually adopted darker elements, which incarnated into a prevailing grim undercurrent that ran parallel to the performance’s surface-level showbiz flair. The contrast translated into such a divisive, emotional tone in the end, that one is not sure whether to laugh or sit there catatonically trying to comprehend it all. The greatness of this gap was brilliantly demonstrated in a moment where one of the characters said, “I finally got a gun… and I shot myself,” which took place amidst happy, energetic melodies and animated cheery-eyed dancers. The implications of this social commentary were very profound. As a whole, the cast showed masterful levels of skill variety...
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...raping two white girls on a train in Scottsboro, Alabama. In all actuality, the Scottsboro Boys were minding their own business when a white man stepped on Haywood Patterson’s hand which led to a fight between the two groups of boys. The black boys won the fight and threw the others off of the train, but were met by police at the next stop who were told by two white women that they had been raped. Those boys were found guilty and had a retrial several times, they even went to the Supreme Court twice just to become free. Only one of the boys was never found not guilty and that was Haywood Patterson, so he ended up escaping prison to finally become free from the grasps of Alabama. The PBS short film on the Scottsboro Boys had displayed the impact of the Scottsboro Boys on African American history. To begin with, the Scottsboro Trials had a great deal of impact on the way the legal system was ran in the United States of America. Black defendants were allowed the right to have a fair case, and to make this happen they would have half of the jury be black. That right had to be passed on because of the fact that there were way...
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...Colin O’Leary TKM Paper Has one ever heard about the Scottsboro trial? Has one ever witnessed racism in there life? Harper Lee’s novel was based on true events in our American history past. These are connections to Jim Crow, mob mentality, and issues of racism in that time period. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird one of their historic reference was the Jim Crow laws. The Jim Crow laws were laws that made whites superior to the blacks, and were also anti-black laws. The whites thought this was needed because they said lynching was distasteful but was necessary. They thought this also because it was necessary to the criminal justice system because blacks were prone to violence (Pilgrim 5). The whites thought it was needed but about one-third...
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...The nine young African Americans were recognized as the “Scottsboro boys” They were accused of raped of two white women on a train toward Alabama in 1931. The white jury convicted eight of them. All except one, the youngest at 12 years old, and were sentenced to death. The story of the Scottsboro Boys is important not only in civil rights history, but also in the evolution of constitutional law, for it was this case that led to a more wide-reaching, interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of "equal protection under the law" and of "due process of law." The case also expanded the scope of the Sixth Amendment's assurance of a defendant's right to "have the assistance of counsel." Specifically, the case ultimately resulted in...
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...The Scottsboro boys are one of the most prime examples in US history of injustice and Racial Bigotry. On March 25, 1931 a group of black men boarded a train with the purpose of finding work in Memphis. When a fight broke out between the Scottsboro boys and a group of whites, the men involved found that the solution to their quarrel wouldbe to accuse the black men of assault. Of course during this time period assault of a white man by a black was a very major deal, the real issue came when two white women accused the Scottsboro boys of rape. The women (who also had a history of prostitution) feared vagrancy charges and thought that a way to avoid them would be to plea rape in a larger case. Thousands of people in history have been falsely accused...
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...The Scottsboro Trials is a case that lasted from 1931-1937. The case was about 9 black men (ages ranged from 12-19) who were accused of raping two women after a fight on a train to Tennessee. The case caused a huge outbreak across the nation. Riots and protests for the men accused. The case went to several judges, several trials, several lawyers and attorneys, and organizations got involved in the case. It sparked a bunch of racism and inequality in the Alabama Court systems and changed the way they use their jury’s, even to this day. The accusations of : Olen Montgomery, Clarence Norris, Haywood Patterson, Ozie Powell, Willie Roberson, Charlie Weems, Eugene Williams, and brothers Andy and Roy Wright On March 24. 1931, 9 black men were accused of raping two women, Ruby Bates and...
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...The trial of the Scottsboro boys has been one of the most infamous legal injustices in American History. Nine black teenage boys were convicted of a crime that they never committed. Two white women accused the boys of an alleged gang rape on a Southern Railroad freight run. It all began on March 25, 1931 when a fight between white youths and a larger group of black youths broke out on the train. Eighteen year old, Haywood Patterson was hanging on the side of the train when a young white boy stepped on his hand while walking across the top of a tank car. Haywood had a few friends of his on the train. A stone-throwing fight erupted between a group of white youths and a larger group of black youth. Eventually, the blacks were able to force all...
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...the Scottsboro Trials, nine young innocent boys were accused of a crime they never once committed and were dragged through many unfair trials. All boys were african american and their names were Clarence Norris, Olen Montgomery, Andy Wright, Willie Robertson, Ozie Powell, Eugene Williams, Charlie Weems, Roy Wright, Haywood Patterson. The boys ages ranged from 19-13 years old. In all, 5 trials were held for this case. The boys experienced racism, discrimination and segregation throughout this part of their life. The night when the boys were accused of raping two girls was a rough night for them. They were on a train late at night and ¨What they see are dozens of white men with rifles and pistols-an armed posse-rushing in to grab Haywood Patterson,...
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...During the 1930’s most of America’s attention was directed to a well-known case taking place in Scottsboro, Alabama. The Scottsboro trials was a set of trials concerning an alleged rape. The case began on March 25, 1931 when two white, working class women stumbled off of the train claiming they had been raped by nine black men. The case went to court four times, spanning for seven years, and eighty-two years until all nine boys were pardon for the charges of rape. “The case had never presented as many tri…..” The Scottsboro trials greatly proved how partial the American government and justice system was, particularly in the south. After the civil war African Americans were free, but that did not mean they were equal. In the Constitution “All...
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...One night in Scottsboro during the tragic time of segrigation in 1930 the freight neared Stevenson, less than half the way to Huntsville, Victoria testified that the 12 Negroes climbed into the gondola in which the two girls were riding with the seven white youths, walking over the top of a box car in front and jumping into the gondola. Ruby said in a personal interview later that she did not know how many colored boys were in the crowd. She said she was too frightened to count them. The Negroes gave the number of their gang as 15. Victoria maintained emphatically that there were 12. According to Victoria's testimony, a Negro identified at the trial as Charlie Weems came first waving a pistol, followed by the others in the crowd. A mile or two past Stevenson, Victoria said that the Negroes began fighting with the white boys, shouting "unload, you white sons-of-bitches" and forcing the white boys to jump from the freight which was moving at a fast rate of speed. One of the white boys, Orvil Gilley, who said he was afraid to jump for fear he would be killed, was allowed by the Negroes to remain. One of the Negroes testified that he...
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...Racism and sexism play a strong role in the case. In the case of Scottsboro, Ozie Powell was clearly innocent of rape. With consideration of all the evidence, it can be clearly inferred that Ozie Powell had done nothing wrong with the exception of hoboing. Obviously, Ozie was guilty of hoboing. However, he is not guilty of rape. This is shown when the victim, Victoria Price, would not be able to answer the posed questions completely. Whenever Price was questioned about the event, she would respond with indirect or incomplete answers. She would say things like, “I don’t know” or “I can’t say” (Price’s Testimony). This would lead anyone in a right mind to believe that Price had made up a fake story and she was unable to provide answers when...
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...Many southerners, at least back in the 1930s, would describe an ideal southern woman as a woman who stays in her place. She takes care of the children and provides food for the house and for her husband. It’s debatable whether or not the woman should work, but it’s agreed that a “proper” lady wouldn’t be a prostitute or a hobo living on the streets. Victoria Price, one of the two Scottsboro accusers, sold her body to make money because of the Great Depression. She hoboed aboard trains to get from one place to another with Ruby Bates, the other Scottsboro accuser (citation). Mayella, a character from the book “To Kill a Mockingbird,” was a poor lady who also wouldn’t be considered an ideal southern lady. All three of these women accused men of raping them and since they were white and the men were black, they gained the sympathy of many people, and their unideal pasts were ignored....
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...influences from Jim Crow laws, mob mentality, and Scottsboro trials. The first influence on Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is the Jim Crow laws. The Jim Crow laws are a racial caste system. Jim Crow are a bunch of harsh against Blacks laws (Pilgrim). The Whites did these actions because they disliked any benefit made Blacks including economic and political (Pilgrim). If the Blacks are to disobey then the punishments could be a lynching (Pilgrim). The Jim Crow laws are seen in To Kill a Mockingbird. One of the laws that you could see was “ Never assert or even intimate that...
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...-The unjust legal system During the time that the novel To Kill a Mockingbird takes place there was a lot of racial injustice in the legal system. Black people would be sent to prison or killed for crimes they either did not commit or for crimes that did not deserve such punishments. The author Harper Lee was aware of this injustice and she based her book To Kill a Mockingbird on one of these trials. The trial that was taking place during this novel was called the Scottsboro boys trial. Once again black men were being accused of a crime but they did not commit. -The Scottsboro boys trial •What Happened On March 25, 1931 in Scottsboro, Alabama a group of nine black teenagers entered onto a train. Their names were Charlie Weems, Ozie Powell, Clarence Norris, Olen Montgomery, Willie Roberson, Hayward Patterson, Eugene Williams, and Andrew and Leroy Wright .When a group of white teenagers saw one of the boys,...
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