1931: On March 25, a fight breaks out between groups of young black and white men on a freight car in Alabama. Nine black youths, age 12 to 19, are arrested, and rape charges are added based on the accusations of two white women. In April, the boys are tried and found guilty — eight are sentenced to die by electric chair, but a mistrial is declared for Roy Wright, the youngest. Throughout the year, progressive organizations call for a rejection of the convictions as “railroading.”
1932: In Patterson v Alabama, the U.S. Supreme Court rules the defendants were denied the right to counsel, violating their rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. New trials are set.
1933: In January, defense lawyer Samuel Leibowitz takes the case on behalf of the International Labor Defense, the legal arm of the Communist Party in the U.S. At Haywood Patterson’s second trial, one of the women, Ruby Bates, recants the rape charge. Patterson is found guilty anyway. By the end of the year, the trials of Patterson and Clarence Norris end in death sentences for both.
1935: In Norris v Alabama, the U.S. Supreme Court rules the exclusion of blacks on jury rolls deprives black defendants of their rights under the law, and the Patterson and Norris convictions are overturned.
1936: While being transported to the Birmingham Jail, one of the accused, Ozie Powell, attacks a deputy and is shot in the head. He survives but suffers brain damage. In December, Lt. Cov. Thomas Knight meets Leibowitz to negotiate a compromise.
1937: Rape charges against four of the young men — Olen Montgomery, Willie Robertson, Eugene Williams and Roy Wright — are dropped. The four go on to appear in a vaudeville act at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem.
1938: Gov. Bibb Graves meets with the Scottsboro defendants to consider parole, then denies it for the five remaining men.
1943: Charles Weems, the oldest of the boys when they were arrested, is released on parole.
1946: Ozie Powell and Clarence Norris are released on parole. Haywood Patterson escapes from prison.
1950: Andy Wright is paroled and Haywood Patterson’s autobiography, “Scottsboro Boy,” is released. In December, Patterson gets into a bar fight in which a man dies. He is sentenced to 6-15 years in prison.
1952: Haywood Patterson dies of cancer at age 39.
1976: Alabama Gov. George Wallace officially declares that Clarence Norris, the last of the nine Scottsboro defendants, is not guilty.
1979: Clarence Norris’ “The Last of the Scottsboro Boys” is published. He dies in 1989.
2004: The town of Scottsboro dedicates a historical marker at the Jackson County Courthouse in commemoration of the boys’ struggle for justice.
2010: The Scottsboro Boys Museum opens in Scottsboro, Ala. In New York, the off-Broadway musical “The Scottsboro Boys,” created in the framework of a minstrel show, moved to Broadway for only two months. It received 12 Tony Award nominations, second only to “The Book of Mormon,” but won none. It later became a hit in London.
2013: Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley officially exonerates the last of the Scottsboro Boys.
— Sharon Eberson, Post-Gazette
First Published: September 6, 2017, 11:45 a.m.
