Presumed guilty: nine black teens known as the Scottsboro Boys faced bias and death in the 1930s justice system.

• Author: Price, Sean
• Position: Times past

HAYWOOD PATTERSON WAS 18 WHEN HE AND OTHER BLACK teens hitched a ride on a freight train from Chattanooga to Memphis, Tenn., on March 25,1931. The trouble began when a white hobo, one of a group riding the rails, stepped on Patterson's hand. Patterson recalled:

"We was just minding our own business when one of them says, `This is a white man's train.' ... So there was a fight. We got the best of it and threw them off the train."

The fight was just beginning. It would ultimately expose a justice system with little consideration of an offender's age, and almost no regard for fairness if the accused was black. And it would lead to landmark civil rights rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Kicked off the train, the white hoboes told a sheriff that blacks had been attacking whites. An armed posse stopped the train and pulled off nine black teens, including Patterson. They were tied up and taken to jail in nearby Scottsboro, Ala.

The already tense situation exploded when two white women from the same train accused the black teens of rape. Furious whites surrounded the jail. Only the arrival of the Alabama National Guard kept the Scottsboro Boys, as they were to become known, from being lynched.

Like many people during the Great Depression, the Scottsboro Boys had been on the train in search of work and adventure. They had grown up poor and mostly illiterate, and most hadn't met each other before that day. Even their correct ages were in question, though as they are known now, Charlie Weems, 19, was the oldest, and Roy Wright, 13, was the youngest. In between were Clarence Norris, 19; Andy Wright, 19; Haywood Patterson, 18; Olen Montgomery, 18; Ozie Powell, 15; Willie Roberson, 15; and Eugene Williams, 13.

A CONDEMNING ACCUSATION

The women--Ruby Bates, 17, and Victoria Price, 21--were reputed prostitutes. One later confessed that they had accused the boys to keep themselves from being arrested on morals charges. But for a black man, a rape accusation alone could be a death sentence. Thousands of black men had been lynched since the Civil War, most for alleged sexual advances toward white women. Those lucky enough to make it to court faced white lawyers, judges, and juries--who often treated blacks as inferiors.

The Scottsboro Boys went on trial 12 days after their arrests. The prosecution played on racial prejudice. In its summation, one prosecutor told the jury:

"Look at their eyes, look at their hair, gentlemen. They look like something just broke...