On a spring afternoon in 1931, an Alabama posse stopped a freight train and rounded up nine black youths, ranging in age from thirteen to nineteen. Their crime was fighting with white boys - until two white girls, dressed in men's overalls, turned up in one of the freight cars. Though the girls showed no signs of abuse, the cry of rape went up, and a case and a cause that would drag on for almost half a century were born. No crime in American history, resulted in as many trials, convictions, reversals, retrials, and seminal Supreme Court decisions.
Based on first-person accounts, archival material, and court records,
Scottsboro is a novel about the two girls who cried rape, the nine young men who were sentenced to death again and again, and the men and women who fought, some to sacrifice and some to save them.
Ellen Feldman is the author of the historical novels
The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank and
Lucy, as well as many other works of fiction and nonfiction. She writes for the American Heritage website and is a sought-after speaker.
