Term paper for Into to Criminal Justice

Essay by kiwi_majicalfruitUniversity, Bachelor'sA+, March 2005

download word file, 7 pages 3.0


On March 25, 1931 four black teenagers hopped on the Southern Railroad's Chattanooga to Memphis freight, in hope of finding a job with the government, hauling logs. While on the train the met up with five other black teens from various parts of Georgia. On the same train where four whites, two males and to females, all dressed in overalls. While the white boys were crossing over the top of a car, a white boy had accidentally stepped on the hand of a black boy, Haywood Patterson. A rock fight had ensued and being out numbered by the blacks all but one of the white boys had been thrown off of the train. The only reason that the last white boy, Orville Gilley, hadn't been thrown from the train was because the train had reached dangerous speeds, and one of the black boys had pulled him back.

The white boys that had been thrown off of the train had gone to the stationmaster in Stevenson to report what had happened. The stationmaster knew that the train had already went through so he wired ahead about the "trouble" that was on the freight. The boys were captured and taken to the Scottsboro county jail.

While being questioned on the conflicts that had been on the freight one or both of the girls said that they had been raped by a gang of black boys and that they had knives and pistols. So the girls had to go in for a examination and a line up. They had identified that six of the black boys were the...