film

Scottsboro Boys Assignment

Screen the film Scottsboro: An American Tragedy. Make sure to read about the Scottsboro boys in e-Reserves(At the end the assignment page) Write a review of the film.

Visit the film’s website: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/scottsboro/. Here are the questions from that page that you are required to answer.

1a- Read the profiles of the accusers, Ruby Bates and Victoria Price:

(http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/scottsboro-ruby-bates-and-victoria-price/). Briefly describe the two women who accused the Scottsboro defendants of rape, especially their socio-economic background.

1b- Read the profiles of Olen Montgomery and other Scottsboro defendants

(http:www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/Scottsboro-boys-who-were-the-boys/).

Briefly describe these young men, especially their socio-economic background.

1c- How might the socio-economic background of both the accusers and the defendants have helped shape the events of the case?

2a- Read the background on the International Labor Defense

(http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/scottsboro-international-labor-defense/) and the description of the I.L.D.’s role in the Scottsboro case.

(http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/scottsboro-defense-committee/). What was the link between the I.L.D. and the American Communist Party?

2b- According to the American Communist Party, how did the Scottsboro case demonstrate one of the evils of the American Capitalism System?

3a- Read about Patterson v. Alabama (http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/294/600.html) and (http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1899). Also, research Judge James Horton (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/scottsboro-biography-trial-judges/). Explain why the location of the alleged crime helped cause the judge to doubt the women’s testimony.

3b- How did the judge’s stance affect his career?

4a- On your own, find sources and research the two major Supreme Court cases in the Scottsboro affair, Powell v. Alabama (1932) and Norris v. Alabama (1935). In the first, the court ruled that the Scottsboro defendants were denied the right to counsel, which violated their right to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. What is meant by the phrase “right to counsel”? According to the court, how had the Scottsboro defendants been denied this right?

4b- In the second case, the court ruled that the exclusion of African Americans. From jury rolls deprived black defendants of their rights to equal protection under the law. What was the main evidence that African Americans had been excluded from jury rolls? Why would this exclusion deprive black defendants of their rights to equal protection under the law?

5- Based on the reading on e-Reserves and the website, how did the boys and black people around the country challenge and protest the initial verdict(s)?

E-Reserves about Scottsboro:

Excerpt from “The South Speaks” by John Henry Hammond, Jr. (April 26, 1933)

Decatur was quiet when the trial began. But it was not long before latent prejudices flared up. During the first day of the actual trial a menacing band of fifty came into the courthouse from Scottsboro “out of curiosity.” Leibowitz’s method of questioning pure Southern womanhood had aroused their resentment, and they made no bones about it. Organized mobs began to form outside of Decatur. Farmers from surrounding towns held protest meetings. Hadn’t an outsider dared to call a black man “mister” in court and demanded that the Attorney-General do the same? Wasn’t the defense advocating racial equality, and wasn’t there danger of these Northerners arousing the niggers?

The effect of the trial on the three thousand Negroes of Decatur was enlightening. At first there was no appreciable difference in behavior. But after the most respectable members of their community–doctors, Sunday-school teachers, school principals, ministers, and storekeepers–got up in court to show that they were the equals of whites, the working Negro acquired confidence. Faces which had been expressionless in the courtroom took on smiles, and a few whispered exclamations were to be heard when Leibowitz made a point. Decatur whites took notice of this. In no time at all the local hardware stores were completely sold out of guns and ammunition, and they were not selling to Negroes. No one entered “niggertown” without some kind of weapon. The black folk were also taking due precautions. At first it was hard for these colored people to believe that a fight was being waged for them. But when they saw the defense treat Negroes as equals in court they were convinced.

Alabama’s Negroes are not the only ones aroused. Colored people throughout the land who have been determinedly apathetic to the appeals of the I. L. D. and the Communists are thoroughly enraged by the verdict. In Harlem, Baltimore, Richmond, Virginia, Washington, Chicago, and scores of other cities real protest meetings are being held. The churches are stepping up as never before; collections are being taken for the defense of the prisoners. Theaters and dance halls are staging benefits; newspapers are formulating plans for a protest march of 50,000 to Washington. The South has only to repeat the verdicts in the cases of the other boys to find the Negroes organizing into militant groups.

SOURCE: John Henry Hammond, Jr., “The South Speaks,” The Nation 136 (April 26, 1933): 465. Reprinted at http://newdeal.feri.org/nation/na33465.htm. Last Accessed December 5, 2008.