Audience



The Scottsboro Trials Audence

Shelby Fenderson

The general public was the main audience seen in the Scottsboro Trials. During the many different trials that occurred with this case, there were many people who either supported the prosecutions against the nine convicted boys, or there were people who believed that they were innocent. Very few white people agreed that they were innocent, mostly because discrimination against blacks was very common during this time. Many people had just assumed that the boys really did rape the two women, and refused to look for proof that they didn’t actually commit this crime. Douglas O. Linder writes in his essay about the trials, “As news of the mass arrest spread through Scottsboro and nearby towns, several hundred tobacco-chewing "crackers," mostly poor white farmers, gathered in the evening outside the decrepit two-story jail where the defendants were being held” (Without Fear or Favor… 1). The white people who had heard about this trial automatically began to hate these African American boys, and created mobs outside of the prison, wanting to kill the boys themselves. Linder also wrote in another essay, “Many local newspapers had made their conclusions about the defendants before the trials began (The Trials of… 1). The public was greatly affected by this case because the white people of America continuously discriminated against blacks no matter what.

The African American population was on the other side of the issue, because they believed that these boys were not actually guilty of this crime. The two women involved were widely known as prostitutes, but the blacks knew that no matter what, the jury would not take this into account when the final decision was made. The African Americans did a lot of protesting against this case, because they knew it was wrong. Eventually, the last trial only involved the one remaining boy in the group, as the others had been sentenced to death. The general public had continued to protest whether or not this boy should be sentenced to death like his brothers. Hollace Ransdall wrote in her report of the trials, “But for the sake of outside public opinion, the State decided to ask for life imprisonment instead of the death penalty, in view of the youth of the defendant” (Ransdall 1). The State was trying to appeal to the opinions of the general public, but unfortunately, this was denied and the final member was sentenced to death. Although the public did not have a huge impact on the decisions of the trial, this trial eventually helped lead America into the Civil Rights Movement.


 * Works Cited**

Linder, Douglas O. “The Trials of ‘The Scottsboro Boys.’” //UMKC.// 1999. Web. 24 August 2011.

Linder, Douglas O. “Without Fear or Favor: Judge James Edwin Horton and the Trial of the ‘Scottsboro Boys.’” //UMKC.// 1999. Web. 24 August 2011.

Ransdall, Hollace. “The First Scottsboro Trials (April, 1931).” //UMKC.// 27 May 1931. Web. 24 August 2011.