The Scottsboro Boys by James Haskins

The Scottsboro Boys Reviews

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  skketch

  This true story about what the judicial system did to 9 African American young men in 1931 is a huge blemish on what the Constitution and what the Founding Fathers wanted for this country. The fact that a person's skin color gave people in power the idea that they could forego "due process" in the court room was appalling. I had not heard about the Scottsboro Boys until I heard music from the Broadway musical about their story and I had to know what it was all about. This book by James Haskins is the well researched factual literary documentary of the events of the long fight for their acquittal and release. While the rest of the country reacted with strong disbelief of what was going on in Alabama, the citizens of this small Alabama town felt that it was their obligation to defend the words, false as they might be, of two disreputable white women who accused these men of violating their honor, when in fact, they were trying to cover up their own unsavory behavior was just plain despicable. I was shocked to learn that the judges in the cases squashed the rights of the defendants and their lawyers to speak on behalf of their clients, to gather evidence and to speak to qualified experts and to present this evidence into the record. These judges gave broad berths to the prosecutors. While for several years, the lawyers of the Scottsboro Boys were able to get their objections heard all the way to the Supreme Court, once they got back to the backwater courtrooms of Alabama, they were met with the same roadblocks time and time again. There was no justice to be had for these men in the thirteen years they were held in jails and by the time they were paroled or released, they were hardened and mean. Since most of their young lives were lived in this setting, they had difficulty with trust and able to maintain solid relationships having had little to no outside 'normal' influence on how to do that. This is a powerful story of what hate, prejudice, racial profiling, and supremacy looks like in the USA in 1931 with the backdrop of Nazi Germany and WWII fast approaching. Is anyone else uncomfortable???
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  Kat Warren

  This important book is great reading, too.