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Taylor Cho
Mrs. Leimkuhler
English, Period 5
1 June 2017
1930s America: A Need for Change
In 1929, countries in the Western Hemisphere experienced an international economic
downfall, which led the stock market in the United States of America to crash; what is known as
the Great Depression lasted for a decade and severely impacted the nation’s citizens (Carey).
Although slavery had ended, Americans placed anti-black regulations called Jim Crow upon the
African-Americans of the country, which had been ongoing since the late 1870s and continued to
unfairly affect them in the 1930s (Pilgrim). In the midst of an enormous national economic
slump and a fight for rights for free black people, America appeared to be at a very low point in
its short history with a crumbling nation and divided citizens. Slowly, as time progressed further
into the 1930s, it was becoming more and more apparent that African-Americans craved for
change and genuine equality once and for all. Unfortunately, they were unsuccessful for the
decades to come and during the time, found themselves trapped by whites in holes they could not
escape. For example, all-white juries in court and biased views caused many innocent blacks to
be put to the electric chair and be convicted of unreasonable sentences; the Scottsboro Trials
were one of the most, if not the most, notorious example of a shift in the outlook of American
ethics in the 1930s. Two white women falsely convicted nine young black men of raping them
after getting in a fight with a group of white men while hoboing on a train; eventually, the case
was brought to Alabama’s federal court and even the U.S. Supreme Court (Salter). Overall, the
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trial of the Scottsboro Boys shined a special light on the time period by emphasizing the effects
of the Jim Crow laws, the Great Depression, and a longing for change.
On the day of March 25, 1931, Charlie Weems, Ozie Powell, Clarence Norris, Olen
Montgomery, Willie Roberson, Haywood Patterson, Eugene Williams, and Andrew and Leroy
Wright, ages ranging from 13- to 20-years old, were untruthfully accused of taking advantage of
two white women. The nine young black men were riding in the same compartment as two
women, Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, as well as a group of white men, in which they were all
illegally riding a freight train (known as hoboing) in hopes to find a job in Jackson County,
where the train was headed. Haywood Patterson, the older of the group was almost pushed off of
the moving train in a dangerous attempt to claim that the trains was only for whites. Similarly,
the other whites helped one another to try to push all of the African-Americans off of the car
when a fight between the two groups struck, which ultimately led to the white men being jumped
off of the train. As they had reported the blacks hoboing to local officials, the stationmaster
scheduled that the locomotive be stopped and searched, and of course, the black youths were
found. To make matters worse for the boys, the two women, who were afraid of being
prosecuted for their sexual activity with the white men on the train, testified that the blacks had
raped them. According to Daren Slater of the Encyclopedia of Alabama, “The Scottsboro Trials
were among the most infamous episodes of legal injustice in the Jim Crow South,” and it was
true as the nine boys were convicted of punishments to death and life imprisonment by all-white
juries and the racially biased court systems that they would come to face (Salter; Wormser).
Held in Scottsboro, Alabama over a span of eleven days following the event, the nine
boys were indicted, and all but one were sentenced to death, the youngest, at thirteen, Roy
Wright, received life imprisonment. Between April and December of 1931, the National
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Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Communist
Party, supported by the International Labor Defense (ILD), took up the case and tried to
convince the country to reject the false situation. Soon after, the NAACP withdrew itself from
the case. The truth was surfaced through evidence in a letter from Ruby Bates to her boyfriend in
which she contradicted her accusation of being raped. In 1932, the boys were retried by the
Alabama Supreme Court and eventually the United States Supreme Court agreed to the
Scottsboro Case. Later that year on November 7, the trial was held and the judges determined
that the black men were refused of their right to counsel (Fourteenth Amendment), and they were
again brought to a lower court. The following year, Ruby Bates became a surprise witness for the
defense where she explained the truth; for years later, she decided to travel and speak about the
injustice towards African-Americans to raise awareness across the United States. Time and time
again, the boys were tried guilty and sentenced to death, which eventually reduced to long prison
sentences under all-white juries in which blacks were systematically kept off. Despite the
testimony of Ruby Bates and the rape charges are dropped, the Scottsboro Boys were given
several decades in prison while the white men on the train received absolutely no punishment.
Finally, the nine black youths were slowly paroled from their convictions and lived life with the
cold, hard truth of the world that they lived in: the truth of its injustice and inequality
(“Scottsboro Timeline”).
Especially in the depths of the South, Jim Crow, a strict racial social class system, was
implemented in day to day society. The creation of the anti-black laws sprouted from a thought
that whites were supreme to all other races, especially African-Americans. Integration was said
to be dangerous by pro-segregation politicians and scientists believed that colored people were
much lesser to whites by ways of their intellectuality and culture. “Newspapers and other public
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writings often referenced blacks as niggers, coons, and darkies; and worse, their articles
reinforced anti-black stereotypes,” explains Dr. David Pilgrim, a professor of sociology at Ferris
State University. Rules were put in place so that black would never be or seem to be equal to
whites in any way. From handshakes to meals, African-Americans were to give whites their
highest respect under the strict rules that were to be followed by every black person at the time.
Everything was separate for colored people and for whites so they would have minimal
interaction: separate bathrooms, burial grounds, schools, and hospitals. When having enough
courage to resist the backbreaking regulations, many blacks payed to remove the indignities of
Jim Crow by sacrificing their lives (Pilgrim). In the 1930s, the Scottsboro Boys were sentenced
to extreme convictions with little evidence of their guilt simply because they were black and
fought with white men and supposedly raped white women. The case’s trials reflected the time
period in which showed the injustice and prejudiced ways of whites, enforcing Jim Crow
although they knew it was only beneficial to them.
The Great Depression affected every group of Americans and like unfortunate events
always had, African-Americans were most badly hit. Half of the blacks in America lost their jobs
within two years of the stock market crash and in its height, almost 25% of the population,
including whites, were unemployed (“Race During the Great Depression - American Memory
Timeline - Classroom Presentation | Teacher Resources”). With this economic plummet in the
decade of the 1930s, many became poor and could not provide enough for their families any
longer. Resulting from the lack of food and money, both blacks and whites were hitching rides
on freight trains (hoboing) in search of jobs to support themselves. The Scottsboro Boys,
Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, as well as the other white men headed towards Jackson County
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for a job because of the Great Depression and the economically unstable situation at the time,
coincidentally met, which ended up ultimately destroying the young lives of the nine black men.
African-Americans craved for change as they were tired of the unfairness that they had
dealt with each and every day of their lives. All-white juries, systematic planning, and the
etiquette that blacks were to show whites caused uproar in America. Not only was this unfair but
they saw it as meaningless; because their skin color was darker, they were being treated
inhumanely. People were being hanged, convicted to outrageous prison sentences, and beaten for
simply glancing in a white women’s direction. They were up to their limit and felt so low to the
point of losing hope; it seemed impossible to even seek for a brighter future where white and
colored people could sit side by side and share a single meal in peace. African-Americans needed
change and equality once and for all, although they would not receive this until the late 1960s
following the Civil Rights Movement. They persevered through the harshness and some
continued to hope for an end to the injustice served to them by whites.
America experienced a series of terrible events that led to an ultimate downwards spiral
in the 1930s. With the enforcement of the Jim Crow laws, the added obstacles coming with the
Great Depression, and the growing longing for change in the United States, the Scottsboro Trials
were a perfect example of the events and hardships that African-Americans faced during that
time; it showed that America needed change: a change of the systems to get equality.
Works Cited
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Carey, Nelson. ”About the Great Depression." About the Great Depression. Modern American
Poetry. Web. 16 May 2017.
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/depression/about.htm
Pilgrim, David , Dr. " What was Jim Crow." Jim Crow Museum: Origins of Jim Crow. Ferris
State University, Sept. 2000. Web. 17 May 2017.
http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/what.htm
"Race During the Great Depression - American Memory Timeline- Classroom Presentation |
Teacher Resources." Library of Congress. Web. 24 May 2017.
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/
timeline/depwwii/race/
Salter, Daren. "Scottsboro Trials." Encyclopedia of Alabama. Web. 15 May 2017.
http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1456
"Scottsboro Timeline." PBS. Public Broadcasting Service, n.d. Web. 17 May 2017.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh//amex/scottsboro/timeline/index.html