The Scottsboro Boys

A group of nine black teenagers were riding a train near Scottsboro Alabama in 1931, and when a fight broke out, they were arrested. Two young white women named, Ruby Bates and Victoria Price, were on the train searching for work. Following the fight, the women were questioned by the police and accused the boys of raping them. This testimony was later rescinded by Ruby Bates in a further trial. Despite overwhelming evidence that the nine boys who were accused were not guilty, the heated climate of Alabama during Jim Crow provoked outrage in the community. Angry white mobs surrounded the jail, and the national guard was called in to prevent a lynching.

 During the first trial “an all-white, all-male jury quickly convicted the Scottsboro Boys and sentenced eight of them to death” (History). This guilty verdict was met with great frustration nationally and protests sprang up across the nation with people, black and white, shouting for justice. The Supreme Court “overturned the Alabama verdicts, setting an important legal precedent for enforcing the right of African Americans to adequate counsel, and remanded the cases to the lower courts”. (History) During the second round of trials, the medical examination of the women refuted the rape charge and Ruby Bates testified for “the defense, admitting that Price concocted the story to avoid charges for vagrancy and crossing state lines for "immoral purposes" in violation of the Mann Act. She later marched in protests and spoke at rallies for the accused” (Encyclopedia of Alabama).

 

Yet, “another all-white jury convicted the first defendant, Patterson, and recommended the death penalty” (History). The judge moved the case to a further trial and many of the boys were able to walk free. Patterson faced the harshest sentences and was never given a truthful verdict. This trial had a powerful impact on the civil rights movement of the 1950’s and 60s and is seen as one of the key motivators for Harper Lee’s novel.

 

Emmett Till

In 1955 in Money Mississippi, fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was murdered after being accused of offending a white woman in a grocery store. He was the only child of Mamie Till who raised him as a single mother in Chicago. She was a well educated and driven woman who raised him to help around the house while she would work twelve hours days to provide for them. Emmett was popular at his all-black grammar school.

"Emmett was a funny guy all the time. He had a suitcase of jokes that he liked to tell. He loved to make people laugh. He was a chubby kid; most of the guys were skinny, but he didn't let that stand in his way. He made a lot of friends at McCosh."- Richard Heard, Friend of Emmett’s

Emmett insisted on visiting his cousins in Mississippi in August on 1955. His mother tried to talk him out of it but he was persistent and she allowed it. She gave him a signet ring that belonged to his father L.T. the day before his trip.

Shortly after arriving in Money Mississippi, Till and his friends went to the grocery store in town and bought refreshments. Allegedly, his friends dared him to go flirt with the white woman working in the grocery store. The woman, Carolyn Bryant, later claimed that “ he grabbed her, made lewd advances and wolf-whistled at her as he sauntered out”.

The woman’s husband was furious and showed up at Till’s uncle’s house early in the morning. Roy Brant and his brother J.W. Milam took Emmett from his uncle in their car and drove away. The men severely beat and disfigured the boy before throwing him into the Tallahatchie river. His corpse was found three days later.

This horrible event sparked a national outcry for justice. The men were tried by and all-white and all-male jury and were freed from charges of murder and kidnapping.

“Despite the overwhelming evidence of the defendants' guilt and widespread pleas for justice from outside Mississippi, on September 23, the panel of white male jurors acquitted Bryant and Milam of all charges. Their deliberations lasted a mere 67 minutes.”

In 1956, the men admitted to murdering Emmett Till in an interview with Look magazine and were paid 4,000 dollars. They were protected by double jeopardy laws and were not put back on trial. They died with his blood on their hands.

​

Till’s mother held an open casket funeral so that people could see what these men had done to her son. This casket can be found at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. This horrible hate crime took place one year after Brown v. Board of Education and one hundred days before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat.

"I thought about Emmett Till, and I couldn't go back [to the back of the bus]." — Rosa Parks

Through the pain of her son’s death, Mamie Till worked to speak against the great injustice of this crime and became a voice for the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Emmett Till has not been forgotten.

​

​

​

Sources

“Emmett Till.” Biography.com. A&E Networks Television, February 26, 2021. https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/emmett-till.

“Emmett Till Is Murdered.” History.com. A&E Television Networks, February 9, 2010. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-death-of-emmett-till.

History.com Editors. “Scottsboro Boys.” History.com. A&E Television Networks, February 22, 2018. https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/scottsboro-boys.

“Jet Magazine.” Emmett Till Project. Accessed February 9, 2022. https://www.emmetttillproject.com/jetmagazine.

“The Scottsboro Boys - Archives.” Accessed February 9, 2022. https://www.archives.gov/files/publications/prologue/2014/spring/scottsboro.pdf.