Scottsboro Trials

Paint Rock Alabama

Mar 25, 1931

Fight breaks out between white and black young men who are riding as hoboes on a Southern Railroad freight train. Nine black boys charged with assult.

Boys Accused of Rape

Mar 25, 1931

Rape charges are added from white women Victoria Price and Ruby Bates.

Lynch Mob

Mar 26, 1931

lynch mob gathers outside the Scottsboro jail

Rape Charges

Mar 30, 1931

all-white grand jury indicts "Scottsboro boys" of rape

Plead NOT guilty

Mar 30, 1931

All nine plead "not guilty."

Court House Square

Apr 6, 1931

Trial Begins

Victoria testifies

Apr 7, 1931

Clarence Norris, Charlie Weems, Haywood Patterson, Olen Montgomery, Ozie Powell, Willie Roberson, Eugene Williams and Andy Wright are tried, convicted and sentenced to death by electrocution.

Decision Making

Apr 9, 1931

boys choose the International Labor Defense (ILD) to handle their appeal

U.S. Supreme Court

Mar 27, 1932

announces it will hear the Scottsboro cases

Alabama Supreme Court

Jun 22, 1932

pended their appeal

Violation

Nov 7, 1932

U.S. Supreme Court reverses the convictions, violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The cases are remanded to the lower court. New trials held again

Examination

Apr 6, 1933

Ruby Bates confessed that no rape occured and that she was with Victoria Price on the trian. Dr. Bridges found that there were no signs of rape by nine men

NOOO Blacks

Jun 28, 1934

Leibowitz argues that blacks had been excluded from the Scottsboro jury

Fourteenth Amendment

Apr 1, 1935

The Fourteenth Amendment deprives black defendants of their rights to equal protection under the law

Powells Incident

Jan 24, 1936

Ozie Powell attacks a deputy sheriff, gets shot in the head but lives

Failure

Dec 10, 1936

Alabama Attorney General Thomas Knight meets secretly with Samuel Leibowitz, Knight offers to drop the charges against three of the boys and offers the other three a sentence of no more than ten years

Results

Jun 14, 1937

Norris is convicted of rape and sentenced to death, Wright is convicted and sentenced to 99 years, Weems is convicted and sentenced to 75 years, Ozie Powell sentenced to 20 years, Roy Wright and Eugene Williams are dropped, charges against Olen Montgomery and Willie Roberson are also dropped.

In the END

Jun 1, 1938

The Alabama Supreme Court upholds the death sentence for Clarence Norris, but Governor Graves reduces Clarence Norris's death sentence to life in prison, Norris was the last Scottsboro boy to die in 1989