Events of the Scottsboro Boys Tragedy, 1931–1935
Route of Price and Bates
Tennessee
Route of white boys
Chattanooga
Route of Scottsboro boys
Stevenson
2
4
3
Huntsville 1
Paint Rock
Decatur 7
5
6
Scottsboro
Georgia
see R.
Tennes
N
Alabama
0
0
500 miles
500 km
1. Huntsville, Alabama, March 23, 1931: White prostitutes Ruby
Bates and Victoria Price plan a hobo trip to Chattanooga with
whites Lester Carter and Jack Tiller.
5. Paint Rock, Alabama, March 25, 1931: The train is stopped.
Price and Bates fear arrest and accuse the black boys aboard of
rape. The nine black youth are arrested.
2. Chattanooga, Tennessee, March 24, 1931: African Americans
Willie Roberson, Clarence Norris, Charley Weems, Ozie Powell,
and Olen Montgomery board a train headed toward
Chattanooga at various points in Georgia. Price, Bates, and
their companions join the train heading back west. AfricanAmerican teens Haywood Patterson, Eugene Williams, and
brothers Andy and Roy Wright depart Chattanooga in search
of work.
6. Scottsboro, Alabama, March 25, 1931: The teens, soon to be
known as the “Scottsboro Boys,” are taken to prison. They are
all found guilty at trial.
3. Somewhere between Stevenson and Paint Rock, Alabama,
March 25, 1931: A fight erupts between a number of white
and black train-hoppers. The white boys lose and jump off the
train. Price and Bates stay on the train.
7. Decatur, Alabama, 1932–1935: The Scottsboro boys are tried
again after Powell v. Alabama and Norris v. Alabama find the
first trials to be unjustly hostile and skewed. The latter trials
fail to have much better outcomes, however, with five of the
boys receiving sentences ranging from 20 years (Ozie Powell)
to death (Clarence Norris). The four others are released due to
their youth (Roy Wright and Eugene Williams were only 12 and
13,) and medical conditions (Olen Montgomery was nearly
blind and Willie Robeson was crippled by disease).
4. Stevenson, Alabama, March 25, 1931: The white boys travel
back to Stevenson to inform the sheriff that blacks on the train
assaulted them.
Source: Data from Scottsboro: An American Tragedy. (PBS: American Experience.)
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