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A Tumultuous Turning Point Few things have impacted the United States throughout its history like the fight for racial equality. It has caused divisions between the American people, and many name it as the root of the Civil War. This issue also sparked the Civil Rights Movement, leading to advancements towards true equality among all Americans. When speaking of racial inequality and America’s struggle against it, people forget some of the key turning points in it’s history. Some of the more obvious ones are the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves in the North, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s march on Washington D.C. in 1963. However, people fail to recount a prominent legal matter that paved the way for further strides towards equality. …show more content…
When Samuel Leibovitz was hired as the attorney for the nine convicted boys, news of the trial spread to the north. People saw this trial as a blatant disregard for equality. Incensed by this injustice, Americans banded together to protest the prosecutor of the case, or the state of Alabama. During the myriad of rallies, people were not as concerned about their race as they were about the Scottsboro Boys. Both whites and blacks marched together to support the cause. Soon, the phrase, “Blacks and whites unite and fight!” became widespread throughout the rallies. Americans were able to overcome the petty issue of race and focus instead on injustice, bringing them closer together. This shows that the Scottsboro trials were not just a watershed legal matter, but also a significant step towards better race relations in America. Events in which blacks and whites would march side by side, uncaring of their backgrounds, were rare in the United States. Such an occurrence only happened once before. This was in the time of the abolitionist movement, an effort to free slaves almost sixty years before the inception of the Scottsboro trials. Therefore, this prominent series of trials brought together Americans of all races, and thus, impacted the nation …show more content…
After his clients were found guilty of rape and sentenced to the death penalty for a third time, Sam Leibovitz noticed a disturbing trend in the courtroom. Out of the multitude of jurors used in each hearing, none of them were black. Every single one was a white southerner, and Leibovitz felt as though the jury was rigged in favor of the prosecution. This was exceedingly common in the South at this time, as many states excluded people of color from sitting on a jury. In Norris versus Alabama, Leibovitz voiced his concerns to the United States Supreme Court. This landmark case was unorthodox, as Leibovitz had the jury rolls from the cases brought up all the way from Alabama to be read by the justices. The preponderance of the names on the lists were those of whites, but there were a few names belonging to blacks at the bottom of some of the pages. These were all hastily scrawled, as if they were added recently. Leibovitz argued that they were written there merely to show that Alabama did not intentionally influence the jury against the boys, when they actually did. The Supreme Court voted for Leibovitz, and ruled that all people, no matter their skin color, should be able to vote on a jury. This verdict would be instrumental for later race-based proceedings in the future. During the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, many crucial cases were won because of empathetic, equal
The details disclosed that the prosecution highlighted the names of the potential black judges and tinted every black potential juror’s name in a different color. There were four different duplicates of the record of all of the individuals summoned for the task in the case. Evert record had a key, which indicated that the highlighted names represented the blacks. Besides, there were no any blotches made for the white jurors on the lists. There were also many marks made on the black people’s names on the juror questionnaires, and there was no any other race that was
While segregation of the races between Blacks and Whites, de facto race discrimination, had been widespread across the United States by the 1930s, nine African-American Scottsboro Boys whose names are Ozzie Powell, Eugene Williams, Charlie Weems, Willie Robeson, Olen Montgomery, Roy and Andy Wright, Clarence Norris and Heywood Paterson were accused of raping two young white women named Victoria Price and Ruby Bates in Alabama in 1931. Along with the dominant influences of the Scottsboro cases on American civil rights history, the landmark case has substantial impacts on the U.S. Constitution primarily in that U.S. Supreme Court ascertained a defendant’s right to effective counsel.
The Scottsboro and Maycomb trials took place in the 1930s, where the trials both have identical causes with the same conclusion, though its a tragedy event that happened however it have influenced the world today. The resemblance between Scottsboro and Maycomb leads the people into thinking about the Great Depression and the most infamous case that took place in Scottsboro, relating to Maycomb. Though there are no reasonable causes or hateful affairs between opposing characters, yet it seems like racism between white and the Afro-Americans had started the conflict. Coming to a white vs Afro-American cases, the jurors would always favor the white over the Afro-American for they believe its not right to do such thing as acquitting the Afro-American due to their old-fashion values and prejudiced mind. Such tragedy happening in the history has influenced the world today in many ways, the novel To Kill a Mockingbird is one project that’s inspired to be written. Though both Scottsboro and Maycomb seems like a loving town with nice people, however their dark sides are discovered through their actions.
Although the trial of People v. Sweet was a clear legal victory for Ossian, his wife, his friends and all others involved in the defense, the story as a whole was a heart wrenching and grim calamity for the Sweets. Not to mention the NAACP’s failed initiative to champion the case in hopes that it would foreshadow a bigger, nation-wide residential segregation victory in the Supreme Court and maybe even a civil rights movement. After Henry’s acquittal none of the men spent day in jail for the night of September 9th 1925 but both trials didn’t have the effect the NAACP planned and ended playing an insignificant role in the big picture of residential segregation and minority rights as a whole. After the trial of Henry Sweet, Robert Toms announced the end of the trials, People v. Sweet would never see another day in court. However much relief it was to hear that, it was small victory compared to the permanent damage the trials inflicted on the lives of the defendants, especially Ossian Sweet.
“It was like a Nazi rally. Yes, it was just that way Nuremberg must have felt.” (Lambert, 114) The Nazi rally was referred to the public address Governer Ross Barnett gave at half time during the football game between Ole Miss and the University of Kentucky. Nazi’s as well had rallies lead by Hitler. They had a notion that Jews were an inferior race, based on the idea of Eugenics. The Nazi’s and the South were alike in that aspect. The South saw African Americans as an inferior race and the only race that could be superior was the white race. In, The battle of Ole Miss: Civil Rights v. State Rights, the author Frank Lambert presents historian James Silver’s idea that Mississippi was a “closed society,” therefore diminishing any other views besides their own. Before one could consider Mississippi as a “closed society,” one must look at the history of what created Mississippi to become a “closed society,” to have strong beliefs of white supremacy and why they tried to sustain those beliefs at all cost. In this novel, Lambert address the issue that made a significant impact on Mississippi and its people. The issue of James Meridith, an African American who sought for high education from a prestigious school, Ole Miss. White Mississippians beliefs of white supremacy towards African Americans extreme. What caused Mississippi to become this society dates back to the civil war, the fear on African Americans surpassing them, and the politics.
In the 1930’s a plethora of prejudiced persons are present amidst the prominent Scottsboro trials, a seven-year-long case consisting of false rape allegations made against nine black boys from Scottsboro. When citizens fail to acknowledge their own preconceived ideas and look past the prejudice present in society, justice cannot be served. In the Scottsboro case, the court of Alabama disregards the societal issues surrounding racial discrimination and endorses the guilty verdict and conviction of the nine African American boys. Failing to look past their own personal biases, the jury ignores the unquestionable evidence that would support the boys’ case. Instead, the jury focuses on their predilection
Lasting hatred from the civil war, and anger towards minorities because they took jobs in the north probably set the foundation for these laws, but it has become difficult to prove. In this essay, I will explain how the Separate but Equal Laws of twentieth century America crippled minorities of that time period forever. Separate but Equal doctrine existed long before the Supreme Court accepted it into law, and on multiple occasions it arose as an issue before then. In 1865, southern states passed laws called “Black Codes,” which created restrictions on the freed African Americans in the South. This became the start of legal segregation as juries couldn’t have African Americans, public schools became segregated, and African Americans had restrictions on testifying against majorities.
...of religion, the freedom to assemble and civil rights such as the right to be free from discrimination such as gender, race, religion, and sexual orientation. Throughout history, African Americans have endured discrimination, segregation, and racism and have progressively gained rights and freedoms by pushing civil rights movement across America. This paper addressed several African American racial events that took place in our nation’s history. These events were pivotal and ultimately led to the establishment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. The Civil Rights Act paved the way for future legislation that was not limited to African American civil rights and is considered a landmark piece of legislation that ending racism, segregation and discrimination throughout the United States.
Although abolition of slavery in the South coincided with the conclusion of the Civil War, a century of institutionalized racism was widespread in the former Confederacy. This institutionalized racism came in the form of the Jim Crow laws. It was a social norm to look at African Americans as inferior or even harmful to the White population. Groups such as the Ku Klux Klan roamed around "defending" the white population from the African Americans. This defense came in forms of public executions (lynching) or intimidation. Another fear the White Southerners had was the fear of black men exploiting white women. This fear led to many imprisonments and murders of falsely accused African American men. On March 25th, 1931, nine young African American boys were accused of raping two young white women on a train. These nine eventually became known as the Scottsboro Boys, named after the town where they were arrested. Although the boys had a lawyer fighting for them, the trial was over and the guilty verdict came automatically due to the Jim Crow mindsets of the citizens of Alabama. The unfair trials that the Scottsboro boys received are the results of the institutionalized racism in the South; this case revealed the injustice that prevailed in the American South.
Ling, P.J. “A White Woman’s Word: The Scottsboro Case (1931).” Race On Trial. Ed. Annette Gordon-Reed. New York: Oxford, 2002. 118-138.
Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, segregation in the United States was commonly practiced in many of the Southern and Border States. This segregation while supposed to be separate but equal, was hardly that. Blacks in the South were discriminated against repeatedly while laws did nothing to protect their individual rights. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ridded the nation of this legal segregation and cleared a path towards equality and integration. The passage of this Act, while forever altering the relationship between blacks and whites, remains as one of history’s greatest political battles.
One hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation was written, African Americans were still fighting for equal rights in every day life. The first real success of this movement did not come until the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954 which was followed by many boycotts and protests. The largest of these protests, the March on Washington, was held on August 28, 1963 “for jobs and freedom” (March on Washington 11). An incredible amount of preparation went into the event to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of people attending from around the nation and to deal with any potential incidents.
...oys found their way out of Alabama (Linder, n.d.).Andy Wright was the last to leave Alabama in 1950. Some of the boys wrote books on their experiences. The case showed just how indifferent jurors were in the south during the 1930’s, how two women could ruin the lives of 9 men and how politically minded everyone was involved in the trial. The Scottsboro Trials was the only case in history of the US that produced the most trials, convictions, reversals and retrials. In the end this case allowed juries to be open to blacks and helped to ease racial tensions in both the south and north.
A great example of discrimination “was the 1964 murder in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where three young activists who were helping to organize a voter registration drive… At about 5:00p.m. their car was stopped by country deputy, Cecil Price. Chaney was arrested for allegedly speeding and his passengers were detained “for investigation” ” (“The Civil Rights Movement”). The murders of the three men lead to a movie made, twenty years after the murder called the Mississippi Burning. The three young men were arrested for allegedly speeding in Neshoba County (“The Civil Rights Movement”). Two of the three men were detained for “investigation” even though they were white, then found murdered”, their bodies beaten and shot, after their release from jail at a farm. These events were one of many that led to light being shined upon the discrimination that blacks, and those who fought for them, endured. It showing that the level bigotry extended past just blacks, and onto those who associated with
Massive protests against racial segregation and discrimination broke out in the southern United States that came to national attention during the middle of the 1950’s. This movement started in centuries-long attempts by African slaves to resist slavery. After the Civil War American slaves were given basic civil rights. However, even though these rights were guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment they were not federally enforced. The struggle these African-Americans faced to have their rights ...