Compare and Contrast: “to Kill a Mockingbird” & Scottsboro Trials

in Scottsboro Trials says, “...two white women, Ruby Bates and Victoria Price, accused the black men of raping them.” (Scottsboro:American Tragedy) Another similarity is that the main plaintiffs Victoria Price and Mayella Ewell lied about their cases to defend their white womanhood and protect themselves from getting caught illegally riding the train. The Scottsboro Trials document declares that Victoria Price and her friend Ruby Bates avoided arrest from riding the train by saying that they were raped. (Scottsboro: An American Tragedy)

The Scottsboro trials are related to the novel To Kill a Mockingbird in the sense of hope. In the novel, Atticus tells Jem "It's not time to worry yet." (Lee 213). By saying this to Jem, and reassuring him that it's not over yet, it shows that Atticus still has hope for Tom and his family. When they lost the trial and everyone on Tom's side of the argument lost hope Atticus still fought for him. Atticus had hope that it would be okay for Tom. The Scottsboro boys showed hope through each-and-every one of their long trials. I believe that they never lost hope because they had the support of the rest of the group, who were all going through the same situation. As the trials ran on for 6 years they got more hopeful they would succeed every time. By showing hope the outcomes of the trials got better. On April 6 and 7th ,1931 the boys were all sentenced to death except the youngest, thirteen-year-old Roy Wright was sentenced to life in prison (The Scottsboro Trial: A Timeline). From April to December, the boys were all brought back to trial but were found guilty (The Scottsboro Trial: A Timeline). Then finally on July 24, 1937 the rape charges

The Scottsboro Trials were among the largest legal injustices in the South. The events that started the trials began in the early spring of 1931, when nine young black men were falsely accused of raping two white women on a train. The cases were tried and appealed in Alabama and twice argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. The state pursued the case and all-white juries delivered guilty verdicts that initially carried the death penalty. Several of the accused were sentenced to prison terms and all had long stays in prison as the case made its way through the legal system. The case later was one of the inspirations for Harper Lee's book “To Kill A Mockingbird”

The Scottsboro Trial and the trial of Tom Robinson are almost identical in the forms of bias shown and the accusers that were persecuted. The bias is obvious and is shown throughout both cases, which took place in the same time period. Common parallels are seen through the time period that both trials have taken place in and those who were persecuted and why they were persecuted in the first place. The thought of "All blacks were liars, and all blacks are wrongdoers," was a major part of all of these trails. A white person's word was automatically the truth when it was held up to the credibility of someone whom was black. Both trials were perfect examples of how the people of Alabama were above the law and could do whatever they

One of the most important cases in the history of the judicial system is little known in the modern world. The case of the Scottsboro Boys made headlines in early 1931 when nine African-American men were charged with the gang rape of two white females on a freight train from Chattanooga to Memphis. Since the time of the trial, it has become widely accepted that the allegation was false and that no rape actually occurred. However, the case represents an issue greater than itself, one that is explored similarly in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee through the case of Tom Robinson. The issue of large scale racism and discrimination has been a problem plaguing American culture for a very long time, finally becoming an issue of the

Some people knew it was Bob Ewell that abused his daughter, Mayella. I thought that it was very shocking how prolonged it took for the judge to convict Tom guilty because usually when a black is accused of raping a white, they would plead them guilty within seconds after the trial ended. Also, I think it is very ridiculous that they still convicted Tom to a death sentence when it was Bob Ewell that attacked Mayella. There was no justice served in the Tom Robinson trial, but there was justice served in the Scottsboro trial because the boys did deserve a death sentence for raping two females. I think moral courage wasn’t a factor in the decision of the Scottsboro Trial because they made their decision quite swiftly, but I think moral courage was a factor in the decision of the Tom Robinson trial.

In the story of the Scottsboro Boys, the boys were arrested due to a brawl with a couple of white men. They were tried for fighting, but also were tried for allegedly raping two females by the names of Ruby Bates and Victoria Price (Linder, “The Trials Of The Scottsboro Boys”) As the trials went on, the boys repeatedly were sentenced

In the Scottsboro Trials, there were 9 boys all accused falsely of a crime they did not commit. Knowing how much worse the racist back in the early 1900s was shows we have come a long way, but are still far from a completely non-racist world. To Kill A Mockingbird is also a great example on how things were back then, seeing as the two cases carry the nearly exact same things. Both were falsely accused by poor white women that had no medical evidence provided at the ‘crime scene’. Both of these things were horrible things, but have helped us move on from our past mistakes. In today’s world, most of the racism has moved on from blacks, but is still there, and onto the Middle Eastern population. Hopefully, people will learn from our mistakes

Rabinfranch says “No civilized society can thrive upon victims who’s humanity has been permanently mutilated.” Society plays a monumentos role in who we are. Every decision we make is based on what we are told is right and what we are made to believe we have to do. Mayella Ewell, Ruby Bates and Victoria Price are perfect examples of victims of society. To Kill A Mockingbird and the Scottsboro Trials are parallel situations that reflect upon how society affects decision-making. Although the choice was theirs whether to be accusers or not, they were put into a position that they believed they had to lie to get themselves out of.

Similar reactions from each community arose. In both cases, it seems as though everyone either got involved or was kept updated on what was going on. Scout and the rest of the gang “knew there was a crowd, but had not bargained for the multitudes in the first floor hallway,” (Lee 217). Just as the Tom Robinson case, the Scottsboro case blew out of proportion. People all across the country got involved. According to Horne and his work of literature entitled Powell vs Alabama: The Scottsboro Boys and American Justice, the Ku Klux Klan paraded down streets, instigating lynchings. They even tried to break into the prison where the Scottsboro boys were being held. A familiar situation occurred in To Kill a Mockingbird when a group of men tried to break into Tom Robinson’s

With both verdicts being guilty, the Tom Robinson and the Scottsboro trials show how unfair people can be.  Segregation, Racism, and being prejudice show how unjust the men were treated.  Even though both were innocent, both verdicts were guilty.

One of the women even confessed that the two were not raped but instead made a false lie due to fear of being caught because they were prostitutes. In the short article called,” Historical Context: The Scottsboro Trials” is stated,” …local judge James Horton effectively overturned the conviction of the jury and, in a meticulous analysis of the evidence that had been presented, ordered a new trial on the grounds that the evidence presented did not warrant conviction” (Johnson). This excerpt informs readers that the Judge had told the plaintiff that there was not enough sufficient evidence to support the conviction. The similarities between To Kill a Mockingbird and the Scottsboro trial are uncanny. The book only had one accuser and one black boy on trial unlike the Scottsboro boys where nine African American men were on trial.

There are many basic parallels between the Scottsboro Trial and Tom Robinson’s Trial, in To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. As Harper Lee grew, up, she was surrounded with news of the Scottsboro Trial, which had a large impact in her novel. But there are also many deeper parallels between these two. Both trials contained African-American(s) being accused of rape to a white woman, but Lee had a way to show this through a child’s eyes, presumably, her as a young child experiencing the Scottsboro Trials firsthand. The characters involved within Tom’s Trial are also fabricated from the people involved with the Scottsboro Trial. There are many examples within both texts to prove these statements. The Scottsboro Trial is filled

Comparison There are many similarities and some differences between the Scottsboro trial and the trial of Tom Robinson in the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. No crime in American history produced as many trials, convictions, reversals, and retrials as did an alleged gang rape of two white girls by nine black teenagers on a southern railroad freight run on March 25, 1931. The author of To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee, was a young girl during the Scottsboro trial and based the trial of Tom Robinson in her novel off of the Scottsboro trial of 1931. Both trials were based off of false accusations against black men. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Robinson was accused of rape by Mayella Ewell.

Victims, Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, displayed no signs of gang rape, including bruises, emotional distress, or open wounds. The nine boys were arrested and tried twelve days after the allegation. Because they could not be tried individually nor all together, groups of two and three from the nine were tried at a time. Six out of the nine boys claimed the event of rape never took place while the other three hesitantly agreed that the event took place due to the threats they had received (Linder). Consisting of four trials, the lawsuit resulted in the conviction and death sentences of seven of the boys. Roy Wright and Eugene Williams, the youngest of the convicted boys—at the ages of twelve and thirteen, respectively—were not given death sentences due to their young age and inability to be tried as adults. Months after the conviction, alleged victim Victoria Price admitted to fabricating the dispute to cover her violation of the Mann Act (Linder): a law that prohibits the interstate transportation for the purpose of prostitution (PBS). The Scottsboro Boys’ lawsuit draws similarities to the litigation Atticus defends in the novel. An all-white jury judged each of the four litigations belonging to the case, resulting in an indisputable bias among them all. Bias of an all-white jury parallels to the Robinson v. Ewell dispute due to the faulty conviction of an innocent, African American man. The presence of the all-white jury led to a bias in the results and continued to exist throughout the 1950s and 1960s as all-white juries remained in effect for crimes with African American