To Kill A Mockingbird: The Scottsboro Trial

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 boys trial took place in March of 1931, a trial that was dictated by race and not by actions. The accusations were faulty, as was the evidence. Yet the boys were all sentenced for death or life imprisonment. The trial was unfair at least, the nine black boys were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Liberty and justice isn't attainable for all. In To Kill a Mockingbird racism and discrimination seems to be everywhere in the Maycomb County. This didnt just happen in a story it has happened in many cases over history. There are many cases in the story when racism overruled justice. One of the many occasions was the trial of the Scottsboro boys that was unfair and unobtrusively thoughtless. Racism is considered a disease in Maycomb county.

When Harper Lee was writing about the trial of Tom Robinson in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” she had a very real case to look to for inspiration. The trial of the Scottsboro Boys was a world renowned case in the 1930’s in which nine black youths were accused of raping to white girls in Alabama. Lee’s novel took this case and created the fictional case of Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a lower class white girl in a small town in Alabama during the Depression-era. The Scottsboro trials were the main source of inspiration for Lee’s novel, and although the circumstances of the novel differed from the real-life scandal, the similarities between the two cases are quite abundant.

I think that Harper Lee was inspired by the events of the Scottsboro Boys to write To Kill a Mockingbird based of the following evidence. Several of the characters in To Kill a Mockingbird are very similar to people that were involved in the Scottsboro Boys trials. The setting in a small Alabama town are similar and that both of the accoused rapes are both under similar circumstances that a black man was accused by a white women. This essay will be comparing characters from the book to real people from the Scottsboro Boys trials. Including Haywood Patterson, Tom Robinson, Victoria Price, Mayella Ewell, Samuel Leibowitz, and Atticus Finch.

Maycomb, Alabama was a town of racism and discrimination against everyone. They discriminated everyone from being black, white, poor, and even just for being a bit strange. But what they didn’t realize is “…there's just one kind of folks. Folks."(Lee 259) The courtroom in Maycomb was still separated by the color of skin, the economic structure and even by gender. This was considered a normal thing in Alabama; everyone knew that the only people with power were the white men. They were the only ones who could do anything and led to much hatred all around just because of the supremacy of certain

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

It all started when the nine men and other whites, had a dispute on a train. The train was then stopped in Paint Rock, Alabama. The nine men were thrown off the train and charged with assault. On March 25, 1931, Victoria Price and Ruby Bates accused all the young men of rape. The next day, 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

Moral courage is making the right choice instead of the easier one. This is shown in both the Scottsboro Boys trial and To Kill a Mockingbird. In the novel, a black man is accused of raping a white woman. In the Scottsboro Boys trial, nine black teenagers are being accused of raping two white women. Both of these trials take place during a racist time period, giving the defense a disadvantage. Signs of moral courage is shown when others chose to defend Scottsboro boys and Tom Robinson, but cowardliness is also shown as people take the easy way out.

The Scottsboro trial of the 1930’s is still one of the most famous racial cases today. It impacted the legal system and changed the course of history for years to come. It has even influenced and inspired literary work such as Tom Robinson’s case in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. The similarities between the Scottsboro case and Tom Robinson’s case heavily outweigh the differences. Thus it can be concluded that without the Scottsboro case To Kill a Mockingbird would not have the storyline readers know today.

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

The women, prostitutes in search for better jobs, showed no evidence of rape after being examined by a doctor. Also, some of the boys were not even in the same train car, and testified that they never even saw the girls. Ruby Bates, one of the accusers, even backed out and changed her story. While the other accuser, Victoria Price, was very sarcastic, ignorant, and used bad memory as an excuse to avoid hard questions. The boys went to trial and were convicted of rape; even though it was obvious to everyone that they were innocent.

On July 11, 1960 , Harper Lee made history by publishing To Kill a Mockingbird. The novel depicts a society filled with racial prejudice and inequality in the 1960s. More specifically, the novel revolves around a court case involving a black man who is wrongly accused of raping a 19 year old white girl. The defense attorney for the black man states that the case has an “inevitable verdict” (253). How could a verdict be inevitable? In fictional Maycomb County, Alabama, cases involving a white victim and a black defendant are solely based on prejudice against blacks; a prejudice founded in fear and sustained by segregation. While some might believe these racial divisions to be a thing of the past, recent events in Ferguson, Missouri suggest otherwise. Both Maycomb County and Ferguson, Missouri suffer not only from deep racial divides, but also from a police force that drives the wedge deeper.

One particular warm summer day, just a few hours after noon in the “tired old town” of Maycomb, the Finch household was unusually quiet(6. Lee). So quiet you can hear a pin drop1. Atticus had gone out, the children were nowhere to be seen, and even Calpurnia was away visiting family claiming they could live a day without her. That left ”Aunt” Alexandra Hancock in the house all alone.