Lies Across America by James W. Loewen

Author:James W. Loewen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New Press, The
Published: 2011-08-10T04:00:00+00:00

52. Famous Everywhere but at Home

ALABAMA Scottsboro

From 1931 through 1939 and beyond, the little town of Scottsboro was in the news because of the notorious affair that became known throughout the world as the Case of the Scottsboro Boys. Their trials prompted hundreds of magazine articles, at least two major histories, several autobiographies and biographies, at least two plays, and an international outcry against the American system of justice, at least as applied to African Americans. Even today the Columbia Encyclopedia has no entry for Scottsboro, but a sizable account of the “Scottsboro Case,” which also provides the only reason Scottsboro gets in The Reader’s Companion to American History. Alan Axelrod and Charles Phillips list the Scottsboro Case as one of “200 Events that Shaped the Nation” in What Every American Should Know About American History.

Nevertheless, the Scottsboro landscape is silent about the Scottsboro Case. Around the courthouse square in Scottsboro are four historical markers. Not one is about the event that made Scottsboro famous. Instead, Scottsboro tells visitors about a Captain Charles Bradford and others who fought in Korea; notes that people from Scottsboro served in four twentieth century wars; mentions that Andrew Jackson, after whom surrounding Jackson County is named, “was visiting in Huntsville at the time”; and reports on Robert T. Scott, after whom the town was named.

Having four markers implies that Scottsboro considers it important to know about and think about its past, but Scottsboro does not. So long as the local landscape ignores the Scottsboro Case, the markers it does display downtown become partners in the cover-up.

What an event for markers to ignore, for it would make a cliffhanger of a movie complete with sex, violence, narrowly averted lynchings, a last-minute surprise witness, and even a Communist conspiracy of sorts! And because so many people wrote about the case from so many perspectives, historians know exactly what happened.

On March 25, 1931, nine black youths were riding a freight train through northern Alabama along with several white boys and two white women, prostitutes as it turned out. The white and black youths got in a fight, triggered when one of the whites told Haywood Patterson, an eighteen-year-old African American, “Nigger bastard, this is a white man’s train. You better get off.” The white boys proceeded to stone Patterson and one or two of his friends. When the train made a short stop the black youths joined forces with several other African Americans. As the train started up, the whites resumed their bombardment. Now superior numbers confronted them however, and after a short fight all the white youths but one jumped or were thrown off the train.

Angry, the white boys walked bleeding to the next town and told their story, conveniently omitting their role in starting the dispute. The tale grew, and when the train reached Paint Rock, Alabama, a posse of armed white men rushed the freight cars, grabbed all nine African Americans, and drove them to the Scottsboro jail. Members of the posse also encountered the two white women.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.