Scottsboro

"Scottsboro" is the riveting story of one of America's most notorious legal battles and one of the most grievous and revealing chapters in the history of the South. The case began when two young white women stepped from a box car in Alabama in 1931 and accused nine black teenagers of savagely raping them aboard the moving train. Despite overwhelming evidence of the teens' innocence, the women's testimony when unquestioned and the youths - ranging in age from twelve to nineteen - were quickly tried and convicted. Eight were sentenced tp death. The age of the defendants, the stunning rapidity of their trials, and the harshness of their sentences brought a wave of protest and the aid of the NAACP, the Communist Party, and such famous trial lawyers as Samuel Leibowitz, Arthur Garfield Hayes, and Clarence Darrow. In this revised edition of his prize-winning work, historian Dan T. Carter examines the motivations of the key participants; re-creates every fascinating twist in the case through years of trials, retrials, testimony changes, and legal maneuvers; tells the surprising story of the last surviving Scottsboro defendant; and offers an insightful reflection on how the South has changed since Scottsboro first claimed the nation's attention.