The Smithian

…the Alabama Legislature is moving to grant posthumous pardons to the Scottsboro Boys—the nine black teenagers arrested…in 1931 and convicted by all-white juries of raping two white women. The trials were feverish displays of American racism and injustice that stirred a lynch mob…The travesty…eventually resulted in landmark Supreme Court rulings on the right to adequate counsel and prohibiting the exclusion of black people from juries. The case consumed the lives of the nine men, even after the rape accusation was recanted by one of the women and the testimony of other witnesses fell apart in a series of retrials and appeals. All but one defendant were sentenced to death, and though none was executed, all served time.

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