USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, two white women who were also riding the freight train, faced charges of vagrancy and illegal sexual activity. In order to avoid these charges, they falsely accused the Scottsboro Boys of rape. The original cases were tried in Scottsboro, Alabama.

Detailed explanation-2: -After 1937, four of the defendants were in prison for rape, one for assault and four others had been let free. Price was no longer needed to testify and she faded into obscurity. Dan Carter wrote in his 1969 history of the trial, Scottsboro, A Tragedy of the American South, that he believed she was dead.

Detailed explanation-3: -The Scottsboro Boys were nine African American teenagers and young men, ages 13 to 20, accused in Alabama of raping two white women in 1931. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident dealt with racism and the right to a fair trial.

Detailed explanation-4: -In 1940, Bates moved to Washington state, where she married. She returned to Alabama in the 1960’s. She died on October 27, 1976 at age sixty-three.

Detailed explanation-5: -October: Clarence Norris is pardoned by Alabama Governor George Wallace. July 12: Victoria Price files a lawsuit against NBC for defamation and invasion of privacy after the broadcast of Judge Horton and the Scottsboro Boys; her claim is dismissed. January 23: Clarence Norris, the last of the Scottsboro Boys, dies.