|
|
Article: Stories of Scottsboro.
- Article from:
- Michigan Law Review
- Article date:
- May 1, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 Michigan Law Review Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
I. AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SCOTTSBORO LITIGATION(1)
On a chilly morning in March 1931, a score or more teenage hoboes boarded a Southern Railroad freight train in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Some time later, as the train pulled out of Stevenson, Alabama, on its westward journey to Memphis, Tennessee, black hoboes and white hoboes got into a fight. The blacks won and forced all but one of their white antagonists to alight from the moving train. The white boys immediately ran back to Stevenson to complain to the stationmaster about the blacks and to "press charges against 'em."(2) The stationmaster called ahead to the Jackson County, Alabama, Sheriff in Scottsboro to have ...