The Scottsboro Trial Informational Packet
The Historical Context Source
Remember that as a result of the Great Depression, many people lived in shanty towns, their shelters made of sheet metal
and scrap lumber lean-tos. All over America it was common to see unemployed men and women riding the rails, looking
for work, shelter, and food-for anything that offered some means of subsistence, some sense of dignity. It was a time
when even a full-time employee, such as a mill worker, earned barely enough to live on. In fact, in 1931 a person working
55 or 60 hours a week in Alabama and other places would earn only about $156 annually.
The economic collapse of the 1930s resulted in ferocious rivalry for the very few jobs that became available. Consequently,
the ill will between black and white people (which had existed ever since the Civil War) intensified, as each group
competed with the other for the few available jobs. One result was that incidents of lynchings--primarily of AfricanAmericans--continued.
It was in such a distressing social and economic climate that the Scottsboro case (and Tom Robinson's case) unfolded.
On March 25, 1931, several groups of white and black men and two white women were riding the rails from Tennessee to
Alabama in various open and closed railroad cars designed to carry freight and gravel. At one point on the trip, the black
and white men began fighting. One white man would later testify that the African-Americans started the fight, and another
white man would later claim that the white men had started the fight. In any case, most of the white men were thrown off
the train. When the train arrived at Paint Rock, Alabama, all those riding the rails-including nine black men, at least one
white man, and the two white women--were arrested, probably on charges of vagrancy. The white women remained
under arrest in jail for several days, pending charges of vagrancy and possible violation of the Mann Act. The Mann Act
prohibited the taking of a minor across state lines for immoral purposes, like prostitution. Because Victoria Price was a
known prostitute, the police were tipped off (very likely by the mother of the underaged Ruby Bates) that the two women
were involved in a criminal act when they left Tennessee for Alabama. Upon leaving the train, the two women immediately
accused the African-American men of raping them in an open railroad car (referred to as a "gondola") that was carrying
gravel (or, as it was called, "chert").
Pictures
Source
The defendants in the Scottboro trial and their lawyer, Samuel
Leibowitz, at a Decatur jail. Standing, left to right: Olen Montgomery,
Clarence Norris, Willie Roberson (front), Andrew Wright (partially
obscured), Ozie Powell, Eugene Williams, Charley Weems, and Roy
Wright. Haywood Patterson is seated next to Leibowitz.
Ruby Bates (L) and Victoria Price (R)
Context for the Girls’ Charges
Source
The first of these questions can be answered only by some knowledge of the conditions of life in the mill town of
Huntsville, as it affected the lives and development of the two young mill workers, Victoria Price and Ruby Bates.
Huntsville, the town seat of Madison County in northern Alabama, has within its city limits, some 12,000
inhabitants. Taking in the four mill villages which surround it, the population is about 32,000. There are seven
cotton mills in and around Huntsville, the largest being the Lincoln mill made up of four units. . . . Then there are two
old fashioned plants under the same management and owned by local capitalists -- the Helen knitting mill and the
Margaret spinning mill. It is in this last place, the Margaret Mill, that both Victoria and Ruby Bates worked before the
trial and afterward.
Wages were always low and hours long in all the Huntsville Mills, but in the Margaret and Helen especially, working
conditions are very bad. The workers had to bear the brunt of the competition with the modern mills, backed by
outside capital and with outside connections to help them out, while the Margaret and Helen management was
muddling along in the old way. Respectable citizens of Huntsville said that only the lowest type of mill worker would
take a job in the Margaret and Helen Mills.
All the mills were running on short time during the period of the Scottsboro case, and had been for some months
before. Most of them had cut down to two, three, and four days a week. The Margaret had its workers on shifts
employed only every other week, from two to four days a week.
Mill workers found it a dreary, hopeless enough struggle making some sort of a living when times were good, so
when the slump hit them, it did not take long for a large group to fall quickly below the self-sustaining line. Low
standards of living were forced down still lower, and many were thrown upon the charity organizations. It is from
the charity workers of Huntsville that one may get an appallingly truthful picture of what mill life in Huntsville in time
of depression means to workers who are doggedly trying to live on the already meager and uncertain wages of
"prosperity."
High standards of morality, of health, of sanitation, do not thrive under such conditions. It is a rare mill family that
is not touched in some form by prostitution, disease, prison, insane asylum, and drunkenness. "That's the kind of
thing these mill workers are mixed up with all the time", complained one social service worker. "I'm beginning to
forget how decent people behave, I've been messing around with venereal disease and starvation and
unemployment so long."
Under the strain of life in Huntsville, the institution of the family does not stand up very well. Charity workers
grumble that too many men are deserting their families. "If they get laid off, and can't get another job they seem to
think the best thing for them to do is to leave town, because then the charities will have to take care of their
families," said one.
There was no father in evidence in either the families of Victoria Price or Ruby Bates.
Husbands come and go in many cases, with marriage ceremonies or without. A woman who takes in a male
boarder to help out expenses is unquestionable assumed to share her bed as well as her board with him. The
neighbors gossip about it, but with jealousy for her good luck in getting him, rather than from disapproval of her
conduct. The distinction between wife and "whore," as the alternative is commonly known in Huntsville, is not
strictly drawn. A mill woman is quite likely to be both if she gets the chance as living is too precarious and money too
scarce to miss any kind of chance to get it. Promiscuity means little where economic oppression is great.
"These mill workers are as bad as the Niggers," said one social service worker with a mixture of contempt and
understanding. "They haven't any sense of morality at all. Why, just lots of these women are nothing but
prostitutes. They just about have to be, I reckon, for nobody could live on the wages they make, and that's the only
other way of making money open to them."
It should perhaps be mentioned that there are undoubtedly very many mill families in Huntsville to whom these
things just described do not apply, but is also true that there is a large group of workers to whom the conditions do
apply, and Ruby Bates and Victoria, with whom this part of the report is concerned, come from this group.
The First Trial…Excerpt from her report to the ACLU by Miss Hollace Ransdall Source
Negroes Tried in Four Separate Cases
The defense did not ask for severance but was willing to have all nine Negroes tried together. The State, however,
demanded that they be tried in four separate cases. For the first case, two of the oldest of the boys were chosen by
the prosecution. Clarence Norris, of Molina, Georgia, 19 years old, and Charlie Weems, of 154 Piedmont Avenue,
Atlanta, Ga., 20 years old, were the defendants selected for the initial trial.
The chief witness for the State was the older of the two girls, Victoria Price, who told the story of the trip to
Chattanooga and back from Huntsville, as given previously. She did it with such gusto, snap and wise-cracks that the
courtroom was often in a roar of laughter. Her flip retorts to the attorney for the defense, Steven Roddy, especially
caused amusement. The sentiment of the courtroom was with her; she knew it and played up to it, as can be seen by
the record of the trial testimony.
The other girl, Ruby Bates, was found by the prosecution to be a "weak witness," as I was told several times by
officials present at the trial. The white youth, Orvil Gilley, who remained on the train with the girls, also was
considered stupid and slow-witted. The Gilley boy came from Albertville, a small village a short distance from
Scottsboro. Judge Hawkins remarked to me about him, saying, "Well, we all know what his family is. Her mother, for
instance . . ." and he broke off as if it were too obvious for words what his mother was like. I asked if he meant that
the family was feeble minded or of low mentality. "No, not that," her replied, "but . . . well we know here they are
not much good." He would commit himself no farther.
From all I could gather later, it seems that the opinion of spectators and officials at the trial that both Ruby Bates
and Orvil Gilley were no good because they could not make their testimony fit in with the positive identification of
the Negroes and the account of events as given by Victoria on the stand. Victoria told me later that she warned the
prosecutor that he had better take Ruby off the stand as she was getting mixed up and would make identifications
and answers that did not coincide with those she, herself, had made. The minutes of the trial show certainly that she
was the only alleged eye witness of the group on the freight train that testified at great length. Questioning of Ruby
Bates and Orvil Gilley was very brief, and the other six white boys were not put on the stand at all.
Dr. M. H. Lynch, County Health Physician, and Dr. H. H. Bridges, of Scottsboro, testified at the trial that the medical
examination of the girls made shortly after they were taken from the train, showed that both the girls had had recent
sexual intercourse, but [there were no signs of assault]. Dr. Bridges said that Victoria had a small scratch on her neck
and a small bruise or two, but nothing more serious was found. The lawyer for the defense, Mr. Roddy, inquired
hesitantly and indirectly, in his cross-examination of the doctor, if it were possible to tell the difference between the
[physical evidence] of a white man and that of a colored male. The doctor answered that it was not possible to
distinguish any difference.
Other witnesses put on the stand by the State included Luther Morris, a farmer living west of Stevenson, who
testified that he had seen the girls and the Negroes on the freight train as it passed his hay loft, which he said was 30
miles away, and that he "had seen a plenty;" Lee Adams, of Stevenson, who said he saw the fight between the white
and colored boys on the train, and Charles Latham, deputy who captured the Negroes at Paint Rock.
Mr. Steven Roddy, attorney for the defense from Chattanooga, was undoubtedly intimidated by the position in
which he found himself. At the beginning of the trial he had asked not to be recorded as the lawyer in the case,
begging the judge to leave Milo Moody, Scottsboro attorney appointed by the Judge as lawyer for the defense, on
record as counsel for the Negroes with himself appearing purely in advisory capacity as representing the parents and
friends of the boys in Chattanooga. He made little more than half-hearted attempts to use the formalities of the law
to which he was entitled, after his motion for a change of venue made at the beginning of the trial was overruled. It
might be said for him, of course, that taking the situation as it was, he felt it was hopeless for him to attempt to do
anything much, except make motions for a new trial after the convictions, which he did.
The first case went to the jury Tuesday afternoon at 3 o'clock, and a verdict calling for the death penalty was
returned in less than two hours. The Judge had previously warned the courtroom that no demonstration must be
staged when the verdict was announced. In spite of this the room resounded with loud applause, and the mass of
people outside, when the news spread to them, cheered wildly.
The next day, Wednesday, April 8, Haywood Patterson, of 910 West 19th Street, Chattanooga, 18 years old, was
tried alone, as the second case. In three hours the jury returned with the death penalty verdict. It was met with
silence in the courtroom
In the third case, five of the remaining six boys were tried: Olin Montgomery, of Monroe, Georgia, 17 years old,
and nearly blind; Andy Wright, of 710 West 22nd Street, Chattanooga, 18 years old; Eugene Williams, No. 3 Clark
Apts., Chattanooga, Willie Robeson, 992 Michigan Ave., Atlanta, Ga., 17 years old; Ozie Powell, 107 Gilmore St.,
Atlanta, Ga., 16 years old.
It was brought out in this trial that Willie Robeson was suffering from a bad case of venereal disease, which would
have made it painful, if not impossible for him to have committed the act of which he was accused. The case went to
the jury at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, April 8, and early Thursday morning, the jury again turned in the verdict calling for
the death penalty.
Judge Hawkins proceeded at once after the convictions returned against the five Negroes in the third case, to
pronounce the death sentence on the eight who had been tried. He set the day of execution for July 10, the earliest
date he was permitted to name under the law, which requires that 90 days be allowed for filing an appeal of a case.
In three days' time, eight Negro boys all under 21, four of them under 18 and two of them sixteen or under, were
hurried through trials which conformed only in outward appearance to the letter of the law. Given no chance even
to communicate with their parents and without even as much as the sight of one friendly face, these eight boys, little
more than children, surrounded entirely by white hatred and blind venomous prejudice, were sentenced to be killed
in the electric chair at the earliest possible moment permitted by law. It is no exaggeration certainly to call this a
legal lynching.
The most shameful of the cases was left to the last. This was the trial of fourteen-year-old Roy Wright, of
Chattanooga, a young brother of another of the defendants. Perhaps because of his youthfulness, the white
authorities who had him at their mercy, seemed to be even more vicious in their attitude toward him than toward
the older defendants. The may unconsciously have been trying to cover up a sense of uneasiness at what they were
doing to a child. Several of the authorities at the trial assured me that he was really the worst of the lot and
deserved no lenience on account of his youth. But for the sake of outside public opinion, the State decided to ask for
life imprisonment instead of the death penalty, in view of the youth of the defendant.
At two o'clock on the afternoon of Thursday, April 9, the jury announced that they were dead-locked and could not
agree on a verdict. Eleven of them stood for the death penalty and one for life imprisonment. Judge Hawkins
declared a mistrial, and the child was ordered back to jail to await another ordeal at a later date. He is now in the
Birmingham jail. The other eight defendants were kept a short time also in Birmingham, and then removed to Kilby
prison, about four miles from Montgomery. I visited them there in their cells in the death row on May 12, locked up
two together in a cell, frightened children caught in a terrible trap without understanding what it is all about.
Letters from Accusers/ Accused
LETTER FROR RUBY BATES TO EARL STREETMAN (handwritten)
Source
Jan 5 1932
Huntsville, Ala
215 Connelly Aly
Dearest Earl
I want to make a statment too you Mary Sanders is a [censored] lie about those negroes jassing me those
policement made me tell a lie that is my statement because I want too clear myself that is all too if you want to
believe, ok. If not that is ok. You will be sorry someday if you had to stay in jail with eight Negroes you would tell a
lie two. those Negroes did not touch me or those white boys. i hope you will believe me the law don't. i love you
better than Mary does ore any body else in the world. that is why i am telling you of this thing. i was drunk at the
time and did not know what i was doing. I know it was wrong to let those Negrroes die on account of me. i hope you
will believe me. I was jazed but those white boys jazed me. i wish those Negores are not burnt on account of me. it
is these white boys fault. that is my statement. and that is all i know. i hope you tell the law hope you will answer.
Ruby Bates
P.S. this is the one time i might tell a lie but it is the truth so god help me.
Ruby Bates
LETTER FROM OLEN MONTGOMERY TO MR. GEORGE CHAMBLEE (typed)
Source
May 25, 1931
From Olen Montgomery
Kilby Prison
Montgomery, Ala.
My Dear Frind Mr. George
Why sitting down warred nilly crazy i want you all to rite to me and tell me how is things going on a bout this case
of us 9 boys bee cause i am in here for something i know id did not do my pore mother has no one to help hur to
make a living but me she had a little girl luft unly 5 years old to take of and she has no job at all and i gest you all
know how times is on the out side tims i had i did all i cud for my pore mother to help hur live and my little sister i
was on my way to Memphis on a oil tank by my self a lone and i was not warred with any one un till i got to Pint Rock
alabama and they just made a frame up on us boys just cause they cud any way them grond jurys come out of the
room and said us five boys punishment shall bee like time in the Kilby Prison and the judge sent them back in the
room and they come back out the next time and said their punishment shall bee death in the chair.
Eugene Williams
Clarence Norris
Andy Wright
Haywood Patterson
Ozie Powell
Willie Roberson
Charlie Weems
We want you all to send us some money so we can bye us something that we can ear this food dont agree with me at
all i supposed to be at home any way i did not do whay they gat me for i ant give no one any cause to mist treat me
this way i know i ant and i hope you all is doin all you can for us boys please sur and we supposed to have a nother
trial be cause it was not a fair trial i ant crazy no way either lost my mine.
Timeline Source
First Trial
on April 67, 1931
First trial of all nine defendants before
Judge A. E. Hawkins (see biographies of
each defendant below)
Second Trial of Haywood Patterson
before Judge James Horton
The defendents lawyers, Milo Moody
and Steve Roddy, were incompetent
(didn't know what they were doing)
and didn't even try to win. One lawyer
was a Real Estate Attorney (instead of a
Criminal Defense Attorney) who told
the Boys to plead guilty!
This time, Samuel Leibowitz defends
Haywood Patterson
Read the testimony of Victoria Price
and Dr. R. R. Bridges
Price and Bridges testify again,
revealing interesting differences from
the first trial. Read excerpts (bits and
pieces) or Price's and Bridges' entire
testimony.
Second
Trial on
March 27 April 9,
1933
Ruby Bates recants (takes back) her
earlier testimony and says she
was NOT raped.
Lester Carter testifies for the defense,
providing motive (reason) for Price and
Bates to lie.
May 27,
1931
All except Leroy "Roy" Wright are
convicted and condemned to death.
Patterson is found guilty and sentenced
to death.
What were people thinking? Read
these Quotations from the First Trial
(1931)
What were people thinking? Read
these Quotations from the Second Trial
(1933)
This trial was carefully analyzed in
a Report to the American Civil Liberties
Union by Miss Hollace Ransdall.
Judge Horton sets aside Patterson's
conviction and grants a new trial
because he believes that Price's
evidence must be corroborated
(proved).
June 22,
1933
Horton does not win reelection and the
case passes to a new judge.
Third trial! Haywood
Patterson and Clarence Norris are
convicted of rape and sentenced to
death in the courtroom of Judge
William Callahan, who does not believe
corroboration (proof) is necessary for a
conviction.
What were people thinking? Read
these Quotations from the Third Trial
(1933)
November,
1932
First Supreme Court Decision: In Powell
vs Alabama, 287 U. S. 45 (1932), the
high court decided that the Scottsboro
Boys' right to counsel (a decent lawyer)
had been denied (i.e., everybody
deserves a good lawyer).
Map
Source
Second Supreme Court Decision: In
Norris v. Alabama 254 U. S. 587 (1935),
the high court ruled that African
Americans had been excluded (kept
away) from the jury (everybody
deserves people of their own race on
the jury).
Third Trial
on
November
December,
1933
April 1,
1935
List and Biographies of the Accused
Source
1. Charles Weems (Photo)
Charles Weems, at age nineteen was the oldest of the Scottsboro Boys when he was arrested in March,
1931. Weems, of Atlanta, was involved in the fight aboard the Southern Railroad freight. He was convicted of rape
first in 1931, then in a second trial in 1937. He kept a clean prison record and was paroled in 1943. Weems had a
hard childhood. His mother died when he was four, and only one other of his seven siblings survived
childhood. Weems finished the fifth grade, then took a jobs in a pharmacy. Prison life was also difficult for
Weems. He complained about being "half fed" and said he spent a lot of time thinking about "the ladies out in the
world and I'm shut in here." In 1934, he was beaten and tear-gassed for reading Communist literature that had been
sent to him. The gassing caused permanent eye injuries. In 1937, he contracted tuberculosis. In 1938, he was
stabbed by a prison guard who had mistaken him for his intended target, Andy Wright. After his release in 1943,
Weems moved back to Atlanta where he married and took a job in a laundry.
2. Clarence Norris (Photo)
Clarence Norris died in Bronx Community Hospital on Janurary 23, 1989 at the age of seventy-six. He was, as the title
of a book he helped write suggested, the last of the Scottsboro Boys. Norris was the second of eleven children born
to Georgia sharecroppers. He attended school only to second grade, then at age seven began working in the cotton
fields. Norris had a job in a Goodyear plant, working up to sixteen hours a day, when his girlfriend left and he
decided to hit the railroad tracks. When Norris, who had been one of those involved in the train fight with white
boys, was accused of rape he thought he "was as good as dead." According to Norris, on the night before the first
trial, he was removed from his cell, beaten and told to turn state's evidence if he wanted to save his life. At the first
trial in Scottsboro, Norris testified that the other blacks raped Price and Bates and that he alone was innocent: "They
all raped her, everyone of them."
Norris's second conviction was overturned by the U. S. Supreme Court in the landmark case of Norris vs Alabama,
which found Alabama's system of excluding blacks from jury rolls to violate the Fourteenth Amendment. Norris was
convicted a third time in 1937 (in what Norris termed "a Kangaroo Court"), and again sentenced to death, but his
sentence was commuted to life in prison by Governor Graves. Norris was bitter over developments which left him
and four others in prison, while four boys were released. He believed that he was paying the price for their freedom.
Norris fought often in prison. One incident in 1943 landed him ten days in the hole with only a blanket, bread, and
water. Another incident brought on a beating with a leather strap. Norris was first paroled in 1944. He moved to
New York in violation of his parole, and was returned to prison. In 1946, he was a paroled a second time. He got a
job shoveling coal in Cleveland for three years, then moved to New York City. Unemployed in 1956, Norris visited
Samuel Liebowitz who arranged a job for him as a dishwasher.
In the 1960's, Norris asked the help of the NAACP in obtaining a pardon from the State of Alabama. Norris had
violated parole when he left Alabama and was a fugitive subject to parole revocation and a return to prison. A
successful full-scale campaign was mounted, and in 1976 Norris received his pardon from Governor George Wallace.
3. Andy Wright (Photo)
Andy Wright, nineteen at the time of his arrest, was the older brother of Scottsboro Boy Roy Wright. Wright
attended school, doing well, in Chattanooga until the sixth grade, when his father died and he quit to help his mother
support the family. He started driving a truck for a produce distributor at age twelve, a job he kept up for seven
years until the distributor's insurance company learned of his young age and raised rates. In March of 1931, the two
Wrights, Patterson, and Williams all boarded the Southern Railroad freight, planning to ride it to Memphis where
they heard government jobs hauling logs on the Mississippi might be available. Wright admitted to having fought
with white boys on the train, but denied ever having seen Price or Bates until he got off the train.
In prison, despite a 1937 Life Magazine piece which described him as "the best natured" of the Scottsboro Boys,
Wright was frequently ill and depressed. He was also said to be mistrustful, something of a loner, and to have a mean
streak. Wright was beaten by both prison guards and other inmates, on more than one occasion severely enough to
require hospitalization. He wrote that "It seems as though I've been in here for century an century."
Wright was first paroled in January, 1944. He married a woman from Mobile later that year. He took a job, which he
held for two years, driving a grocery delivery truck. Wright left Alabama in violation of his parole in 1946, was
arrested, and for the next four years was in and out of the Alabama prison system. He left Kilby prison for good on
June 6, 1950, the last Scottsboro Boy to be freed.
4. Ozie Powell (Photo)
Ozie Powell, sixteen when arrested, was from Atlanta. Powell was not involved in the train fight, but said that he
witnessed it. He did not know any of the other Scottsboro Boys prior to his arrest.
Powell, whose IQ was measured at "64-plus," could write only his name. Powell who was born in rural Georgia, had
only one year of schooling. He had spent most of the three years prior to his arrest working in lumber camps. He
described himself as quiet, shy, and bashful.
In February of 1936, after testifying at Haywood Patterson's fourth trial, Powell was loaded into a car with Clarence
Norris and Roy Wright. The three were handcuffed together in the backseat, while a sherrif and his deputy rode in
front. Powell and the deputy got into an argument. The deputy hit Powell on his head. With his one free hand,
Powell took a pen knife that had escaped detection during a search out of his pants and slashed the deputy's throat,
wounding him. The sheriff stopped the car, got out, and fired a bullet at Powell (who, along with the others, had his
hands in the air) which lodged in his brain. (The sheriff and deputy described the incident as an escape attempt).
Powell survived, but suffered permanent brain damage. He had trouble speaking and hearing, memory loss, and
weakness in his right leg and arm. On the operating table Powell told his mother, "I done give up...cause everybody in
Alabama is down on me and is mad at me."
According to those who knew him, like Clarence Norris, Powell was never the same again. In what was to be his preparole interview with Governor Graves in 1938, Powell refused to answer the Governor's questions saying, "I don't
want to say nothing to you." Graves decided not to parole Powell. He was finally released from prison in June,
1946. He moved to back to Georgia.
5. Olen Montgomery (Photo)
Olen Montgomery, seventeen at the time of his arrest, was born in Monroe, Georgia, where he attended school
through the fifth grade. Montgomery was riding alone in a tank car near the rear of the train when the fight and
alleged rape took place on the Chattanooga to Memphis freight. Montgomery stuck consistently to his story, and by
1937 every prosecutor connected with the Scottsboro cases agreed Montgomery was innocent. Montgomery was
one of four Scottsboro Boys released in July, 1937.
During his six years in jail, Montgomery, who was severely nearsighted in both eyes and nearly blind in one, wrote
frequent letters to his supporters asking for such things as six-string guitars (Montgomery hoped to be "the Blues
King" after his release).
After his release in 1937, Montgomery said that he wanted to be a lawyer or musician. Despite the assistance of the
Scottsboro Defense Committee, however, none of his career dreams were realized. Montgomery bought a
saxophone, then a guitar, and practiced as much as possible. Most of the job opportunities that came his way-dishwasher, porter, laborer-- Montgomery despised, believing they just were getting in the way of his musical
calling. He did agree to tour the country with Roy Wright for the Defense Committee and spoke at a number of SDCarranged meetings. Montgomery bounced back and forth between New York City and Georgia, drinking heavily, and
rarely holding a job for more than a few months. Sometime after 1960, Montgomery settled for good in Georgia.
6. Eugene Williams (Photo)
Eugene Williams was thirteen when arrested along with his friends the Wright brothers and Haywood Patterson in
March, 1931. Prior to boarding the Southern Railroad freight, Williams had worked as a dishwasher in a Chattanooga
cafe. At trial, Williams admitted that he fought with white boys on the train, but denied having seen Price or Bates
until after his arrest.
In prison, Williams said that "getting out is the main thing I think about." A 1937 Life Magazine article described
Williams as "a sullen, shifty mulatto" who "tries to impress interviewers with his piety."
The state dropped charges against Williams in July, 1937, citing his youth at the time of the alleged incident. After his
release he told Samuel Liebowitz that he hoped to land a job someday in a jazz orchestra. He moved to St. Louis
where he had relatives, and where his sponsors hoped that he would enroll in a Baptist seminary.
7. Willie Roberson (Photo)
When Willie Roberson, age seventeen, allegedly raped Ruby Bates aboard the Chattanooga to Memphis freight, he
was suffering from a serious case of syphillis that would have made intercourse very painful. Moreover, Roberson
was unable to walk without a cane, and clearly was in in no condition to leap from railroad car to railroad car, as his
accusers alleged. Nonetheless, on the strength of Price's and Bate's allegations, Roberson was prosecuted and
convicted.
In fact, Roberson was nowhere near the scene of the alleged rape, but alone in a boxcar near the caboose. He had
left his job as a hotel busboy in Georgia to go to Chattanooga in search of better work. Finding none available, he
boarded the freight for Memphis. Throughout the several trials in which he testified, Roberson stuck to his
story. Finally, even prosecutors came to believe him, and Roberson was one of four Scottsboro Boys released in July,
1937. After his release, Roberson lived in New York City where he found steady work.
Roberson's six years in jail were difficult. Roberson suffered from asthma, and the lack of fresh air available
aggravated his condition. He was diagnosed (as were four other Scottsboro Boys) with "prison neurosis." He said of
his situation, "If I don't get free I just rather they give me the electric chair and be dead out of my misery."
8. Roy Wright (Photo)
Roy Wright, twelve or thirteen when arrested, was the youngest of the Scottsboro Boys. He was the brother of Andy
Wright, who was also arrested upon disembarking the Chattanooga to Memphis freight on March 25, 1931. Wright
was on his first trip away from his home in Chattanooga, where he worked in a grocery store. His only trial ended in
a mistrial when eleven jurors held out for death, even though, in view of his age, the prosecution had only asked for a
life sentence. At the first trials in Scottsboro, Wright testified that he saw other defendants rape the white girls. He
later said that he did so after having been threatened and severely beaten by authorities.
Wright kept a Bible with him at all times in jail, where he was held six years without retrial. He needed whatever
comfort he could find. In a letter to his mother he wrote, "I am all lonely and thinking of you...I feel like I can eat
some of your cooking Mom." Wright went over a year without getting fresh air.
Alabama dropped all charges against Wright in 1937. After his release, he told Samuel Leibowitz that wanted to be a
lawyer or a teacher. After going on a national tour for the Scottsboro Defense Committee, Wright served in the
army, got married, and took a job with the merchant marine. In 1959, after returning from an extended stay at sea,
Wright became convinced that his wife had been unfaithful. Wright shot and killed his wife, then killed himself.
9. Haywood Patterson
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Haywood Patterson was born in Elberton, Georgia in 1913. By the time he was fourteen, he was riding the rails,
looking for work. He was 18 when he hopped on an Alabama-bound freight train with his friends Eugene
Williams and Roy and Andy Wright. Patterson admitted that he was one of the black teenagers who fought with
white hoboes, who had tried to force them off the train, but the charge against him was rape.
After the first trial, in which the nine Scottsboro defendants were tried in groups, Patterson became the point man in
the subsequent trials. In March 1933 he was retried before Judge James Horton of the Eighth Circuit Court of
Appeals, with Samuel Leibowitz as lead defense attorney. That trial ended in a conviction and death sentence, but
Judge Horton set aside the conviction. The next trial, before Judge William Callahan, resulted in another death
sentence.
A confusing series of filing deadlines was missed and Patterson lost his right to appeal. However, in their ruling
on Norris v. Alabama, the United States Supreme Court recognized that the two cases were interrelated and strongly
suggested that the lower courts look into the Patterson case again.
While in prison, Patterson found he regretted skipping out on school. "I held a pencil in my hand, but I couldn't tap
the power that was in it." But he taught himself to read using a dictionary and a Bible.
Patterson was not particularly well liked, by the other Scottsboro defendants (Clarence Norris swore he would kill
Patterson if he had a chance), by other prisoners, or by the guards that ran the prisons. In Atmore Prison, he had to
keep perpetually vigilant against physical and sexual assaults.
In February 1941, a guard paid one of Patterson's friends to kill him. This "friend" stabbed him twenty times,
puncturing a lung and sending him to the brink of death. Amazingly, he recovered.
After alternating between being a maniacal terror and a model prisoner, Patterson managed to get himself
transferred to Kilby Prison, and assigned to the prison farm. In 1948 Patterson made a successful prison break.
Escaping to Detroit, he was eventually caught by the FBI, but the governor of Michigan refused to allow him to be
extradited to Alabama.
Still in Detroit, Patterson worked with a journalist, Earl Conrad, to write his autobiography. Scottsboro Boy was
published in June 1950. In December of that year, he was arrested after a fight in a bar resulted in a stabbing death.
His first trial ended in a hung jury; the second was a mistrial. After his third trial, he was convicted of manslaughter
and sentenced to six to fifteen years. He served only one, as he died of cancer in jail on August 24, 1952.
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