The Scottsboro Boys
In 1931, two white women stepped from a box car in Paint Rock, Alabama to make a shocking accusation: they had been raped by nine black teenagers on the train. So began one of the most significant legal fights of the twentieth century. The trial of the nine falsely accused teens would draw North and South into their sharpest conflict since the Civil War, yield two momentous Supreme Court decisions and give birth to the Civil Rights Movement. In addition to its historical significance, the Scottsboro story is a riveting drama about the struggles of nine innocent young men for their lives and a cautionary tale about using human beings as fodder for political causes.
When 14-year-old Emmett Till took a train from Chicago to Money, Mississippi in the summer of 1955, he entered the heart of Jim Crow country. Though he might have experienced segregation in Chicago, the outgoing youngster had little concept of how hostile white Southerners could be to African Americans.