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Portland Observer Black History Month
February 24. 2010
Town Acknowledges Painful Past
City stood for
racial injustice
(AP) — The very name o f this
Alabama city has stood for racial
injustice for almost 80 years.
Nine young black men went on
..
trial in Scottsboro in 1931 on charges
Now, four generations later,
o f raping two white women in a case Scottsboro is acknowledging its
that made headlines worldwide. The painful past.
defendants — eight of whom were
With biracial support in a Ten­
sentenced to die — came to be nessee River community that is 91
known as "The Scottsboro Boys" percent white, organizers this month
and the charges were revealed as a opened a museum documenting the
sham.
infamous rape prosecution and its
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In Diversity
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We salute Dr. King
and his leadership in
furthering Civil Rights.
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for information and job opportunities:
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call 360-891-5060, Terry Durazo, tdurazo@fs fed us
or visit the websites:
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www.fsfed.us/r6
USDA Forest Service is an equal opportunity provider and employer
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Clarence Norris leaves his Alabama ja il cell after being paroled in
1946. One o f nine ‘Scottsboro Boys ’ falsely accused o f rape in
1931, he was pardoned in 1976.
aftermath.
the case was covered heavily by
The museum isn't large or fancy news magazines o f the day. Books,
it's located in an old African- plays and poems were written about
American church near the city's main the plight o f the defendants.
attraction, a store that sells clothes,
There were years o f appeals —
wrenches, iPods and other items some successful, as one o f the
pulled from unclaimed airline bag­ women recanted, saying their claim
gage. Its operating hours, for now at was a lie — and more trials. All the
least, are spotty.
men were eventually freed from jail
But the o p en in g o f The without any executions. Then-Gov.
Scottsboro Boys Museum and Cul­ George C. Wallace pardoned the
tural Center helps fill a hole in the last surviving defendant, Clarence
historical narrative o f a city that Norris, in 1976. Norris died in 1989.
seemingly went out o f its way for
The case set important legal pre­
decades to ignore an ugly stain.
cedents that still resonate decades
Mayor Melvin Potter said some later, including Supreme Court rul­
residents would still rather forget the ings that guaranteed the right to
whole episode. But Potter, who is effective counsel and barred the
white, said the museum's time has practiceofeliminatingall blacks from
come.
jury service.
"It's like they say: If you don't
But in Scottsboro, the case soon
remember history there's a chance faded into the background. It wasn't
you can repeat it," he said.
until 2003 that a historical marker
With the nation gripped by the was placed on the square o f the
Great Depression after the stock mar­ courthouse acknowledging that the
ket crash o f 1929, people hopped city o f about 14,800 people was the
freight trains to travel from one city to site o f the first trials.
the next. A fight broke out between
Talk o f commemorations or dis­
blacks and whites on a train in Jack- plays about the case came and went
son County on March 25, 1931.
through the years, but nothing hap­
T rying to avoid arrest, two pened until the Scottsboro-Jackson
women who were on the train falsely C ounty M ulticultural H eritage
accused nine young black men o f Foundation was established.
raping them. It was the worst pos­
On Feb. 1, to mark the start o f
sible allegation in a region where Black History Month, about 100
whites were trying to assert su­ blacks and whites gathered in the
premacy just 66 years after the end old Joyce Chapel United Methodist
o f the Civil War.
Church on West Willow Street for
The blacks, ranging in age from the dedication o f the Scottsboro
13 to 20, were shackled and taken to Boys Museum.
Scottsboro, where an angry white
The mayor attended, along with
mob gathered for their trials before two white legislators and the grand­
all-white juries just two weeks after daughter o f the white judge who
the arrests. Eight o f the nine were presided in one ofthe retrials in 1933
convicted and sentenced to death; and threw out a jury's guilty verdict
jurors couldn't reach a verdict for against some o f the defendants.
the youngest defendant.
The fact that whites were part o f
The convictions shocked the the ceremony was meaningful to
n atio n : T h o u san d s o f p eo p le Sheila Washington, a black woman
marched in protest in Harlem, and who worked 17 years on the project.