Black History: Who Were the Scottsboro Nine?

The Scottsboro Nine

Content Warning:  This post contains adult content and is not suitable for children.  

In 1931, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, nine Black teenagers, known as the Scottsboro Nine, were convicted of raping two white women.  The men were completely innocent of this crime.  It took just four days for an all-white jury to convict them.  

 As Paul Gardullo, a curator at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, states, there existed "a myth of black predation on white women when the reality was the polar opposite".  In slavery, Black women were routinely raped and Black men, women and children were exploited and brutalised.  

Go here for more about the Scottsboro Nine.  

Ida B. Wells, a tireless anti-lyching campaigner, produced the Red Record, having systematically researched accounts of lynchings which were based on the fallacy of Black men raping white women.  Wells proved that these accounts were wholly false.  

For more about Ida B. Wells, see:  Ida B. Wells:  a Passion for Justice.  

See also:  Black History:  New Revelations about Emmett Till. 

Go here for more of my Black history blog posts.  

I have two questions for you today:  

1) Does this incident remind you of anything that has happened in the past year or few years?; and 

2) If so, what can be done about this repeated pattern?  

I have my own thoughts about this, but I want to know what you think.  

Please comment below and please share this with your networks.  Thanks.