Stories of Scottsboro
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
From the Pulitzer Prize-nominated author of But Where Is the Lamb? comes a grippingly narrated work of history and "edge-of-the-seat reportage" (Chicago Tribune) that tells the story of a case that marked a watershed in American racial justice.
To white Southerners, it was "a heinous and unspeakable crime" that flouted a taboo as old as slavery. To the Communist Party, which mounted the defense, the Scottsboro case was an ideal opportunity to unite issues of race and class. To jury after jury, the idea that nine black men had raped two white women on a train traveling through northern Alabama in 1931 was so self-evident that they found the Scottsboro boys guilty even after the U.S. Supreme Court had twice struck down the verdict and one of the "victims" had recanted.
This innovative work tells several stories. For out of dozens of period sources, Stories of Scottsboro re-creates not only what happened at Scottsboro, but the dissonant chords it struck in the hearts and minds of an entire nation.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this affecting, rich history of the notorious ``Scottsboro Boys'' case, Harvard historian Goodman traces the perspectives of numerous participants: the black men accused of the gang rape of two white women; the politicians, gentry, editors and activists who became embroiled in the case. Goodman writes clear, detail-rich prose with rhythmic power, ably integrating a wealth of sources to tell of the 1931 incident in northern Alabama, the battles between black leaders and Communists over the leadership of the defense and the several subsequent travesties in court. Only when the case began to damage the reputation of Alabama, by 1937, did prosecutors compromise, dropping charges against four of the accused, while the other defendants remained in prison until the last man was finally freed in 1950. If Goodman's shifting weave occasionally drops a thread, his grasp of his subject is strong, and the recurring voices of the unjustly accused nine--``I want to be a man, and I want a chance in life. Something I have never had,'' wrote one--echo in our collective conscience. Photos not seen by PW.
