“ Scottsboro Boys” Legal Case
The “Scottsboro Boys” describes the case of nine black men who were falsely accused of defiling two women who were white. The accused were to face execution while the youngest of them was to get life imprisonment. The case resulted in demonstrations internationally, and it was able to highlight the issue of racism in America and the conviction was overturned. The outcome of the case was as a result of different national political and economic factors. Political parties got involved in the case, for instance, the American Communist Party (CP) and during this period, it was focusing on American South due to racism and economic exploitation of the black Americans. The political party was able to create mass defense movements as they were supported by other activists who felt that the nine black boys were being convicted for crimes they did not commit. To represent the convicts, CP used the International Labor Defense (ILD), their legal arm for defense cases. The jury was made by white judges, and after they convicted the nine boys, CP and ILD held national protest campaigns (Kindig, 2019). There were popular songs made in relation to the case, speaking tours held nationally and internationally and various street marches. The operations of CP made it to be recognized by the civil rights and African American. In the process, the American Communist Party work to stop discrimination during the protests by stopping at the restaurants that were segregated and staged sit-ins against discrimination.
Another political involvement is seen with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) worked with different civil rights organizations to create Scottsboro Defense Committee to defend the nine boys. These operations made one of the white women confess that they were not raped and in 1937, the case was held in the Supreme Court and the nine boys were saved. The success of the case was due to the operations of the communists and radicals, and it defeated the Jin Crow legal system. The economic factor which affected the outcome of the case was the continuous exploitation of the black men in South America yet slavery had been ended (Kindig, 2019). The South Americans did not want to let the black people leave, and if they rebelled, they were accused of crimes they did not commit. The incident had a positive effect on the politics and race relations in the 1930s as the African American felt the support of America political parties.
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The New Deal
The New Deal had positive and negative impacts on African Americans. There were new job opportunities for the Americans as more than 300,000 African Americans were hired by programs such as the Works Progress Administration. The education programs saw that more than one million African Americans were taught how to read and write. However, these people were left out from some programs such as the affordable housing as the African Americans did not get housing loans and had to reside in poor neighborhoods. The limitation of Roosevelt’s policies is that they did not consider that role of the African Americans in the development of the economy thus leaving them out in some programs. However, the policies helped to elevate the situations of the black Americans as some of the programs such as education were the start of improving their lives.
References
Kindig, J. (2019, March 22). Scottsboro Boys Trial and Defense Campaign (1931–1937) • BlackPast. Retrieved April 2, 2019, from https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/scottsboro-boys-trial-and-defense-campaign-1931-1937/
