No crime in American history-- let alone a crime that
never occurred--
produced as many trials, convictions, reversals, and retrials as did an
alleged gang rape of two white girls by nine black teenagers on the
Southern
Railroad freight run from Chattanooga to Memphis on March 25,
1931.
Over the course of the next two decades, the struggle for justice of
the
"Scottsboro Boys," as the black teens were called, made celebrities out
of anonymities, launched and ended careers, wasted lives and produced
heroes,
opened southern juries to blacks, exacerbated sectional strife, and
divided
America's political....(CONT.->) |