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While I was researching and writing Scottsboro, I had a curious recurrent experience. As a novelist, I am frequently asked what I am working on at the moment. Whenever I answered, Scottsboro, the reaction was invariably, "terrific!" Then a moment would pass, and unless the inquirer was an historian or history buff, another comment followed. "Refresh my memory. What was that about again?"
The word "Scottsboro" is iconic in American lore. Everyone knows it stands for a terrible racial injustice. But few know the details of the horror, how deeply it convulsed the nation, how widely it reverberated around the world, and how it incited and exacerbated other prejudices. Sexism ran rampant. Anti-Semitism raged outspoken and unchecked. These were some of the crosscurrents I set out to explore in Scottsboro. I wanted to bring the monumental issues to light, but I was determined to ground them in the personal experiences and perceptions of the men and women involved. For that only fiction will do.
I scoured first-person accounts, newspaper reports, court records, and other archival material, as well as a wealth of secondary sources, and never strayed from the facts, but I tried to imagine myself into the heart and mind of a terrified African-American youth; his bone-weary bereft mother; a Jewish lawyer from New York, who made a national reputation and a good deal of money representing Al Capone and other underworld figures, and put his reputation, and his life, on the line to save nine innocent men; a young woman born to every advantage, who risked it all in the name of justice, and her own ambition; and an impoverished, barely literate girl who became first the symbol of southern white womanhood, then the darling of leftwing intellectuals, and finally a broken soul who could never make up her mind whether she was raped or not. When I started out to write Scottsboro, I had no idea how fascinating I would find these two women—one an actual historical figure; the other a composite of several women on the scene at the time—and how hard they would fight to take over the book.
All of these characters shaped history and were shaped by the history of a case that dragged on for almost half a century. No crime in America, let alone a crime never committed, resulted in as many trials, convictions, reversals, retrials, and Supreme Court decisions, including a seminal 1935 ruling that found the exclusion of blacks from jury rolls deprived defendants of their rights to equal protection under the law as guaranteed in the Fourteenth Amendment.
Racial injustice and legal repercussions were, of course, foremost, but another fascinating aspect of the case was the way it stood sexual politics on its head. The liberals who wanted to save the boys thought the way to do it was to vilify the two women who claimed rape, women whom under other circumstances they would have defended as victims of social and economic injustice. Those intent on railroading the boys, who normally would have dismissed the girls as loose women, vagrants, or worse, championed them as examples of Southern white womanhood. It was a stunning role reversal.
The case also unleashed the virulent anti-Semitism of the era. Samuel Leibowitz, the lead defense attorney in the case, and all the other lawyers except one were Jewish. Inside the courtroom anti-Semitic slurs flew, though no mistrial was declared. Outside, rabble rousers called for lynching the Jews as well as the Negroes. For many in the South, and the North as well, the coalition of African-Americans and Jews was an unholy alliance. For me, writing in the twenty-first century, the collaboration was a throwback to a more idealistic and happier age, at least in that sense.
Historical fiction says as much about the time in which it is written as about the era it portrays. During the three years I spent writing Scottsboro, I was always aware of how much the country has changed, and yet how tragically relevant Scottsboro remains, and not just in America. Today we speak of a world turned global village, but ethnic and racial violence and even ethnic cleansing continue unabated. The story of Scottsboro reveals the timeless human capacity for hate, and for forgiveness.
Questions For Discussion
1. The nine young men taken off the train and charged with rape quickly became known as the Scottsboro Boys. Only as the case dragged on and various trials went forward did the mainstream press mention their names. Yet the day the jury in the most important of the long series of trials was selected, newspapers all across the country listed the names and occupations of the white jurors. What does this say about the established mores and hidden prejudices of the time?
2. The book begins with a quote from Langston Hughes that reads, "Whoever heard of raping a prostitute?" What did Hughes mean, and does his view persist today?
3. While most southerners assumed the black youths had raped the white girls, many in the north refused to believe the story of rape, but did presume consensual sex. Discuss the racial, sexual, and social preconceptions of the era revealed by these assumptions.
4. Clarence Norris, who became known as the last of the Scottsboro boys, said, "For lots of folks, us boys was nothing more than rungs on a ladder?" What do you think he meant? Should we hold people with good intentions culpable for benefiting from dire events?
5. One young woman who covered the case observed that Scottsboro was the most exciting time of her life. She was happy then. How does this speak to the human need to espouse something greater than self? Is it selfishness or idealism? What are the analogies to our own era?
6. Ruby Bates and Alice Whittier could not be more dissimilar, yet they forged a powerful bond. How do you explain their relationship? Was it merely opportunistic?
7. Many in the North believed Alabama was determined to execute the Scottsboro boys simply because they were black, but many southerners were just as honestly convinced that the northern liberals were determined to save the accused for the same reason. Do you think northern efforts exacerbated southern racism? If so, was the agitation worth it nonetheless?
8. The Communist Party was instrumental in keeping the nine young men alive, yet today they are rarely mentioned, and the NAACP, which bowed out of the case early, generally gets credit for saving the boys. Why do you think this revisionist historical account has taken hold?
9. At the time Judge Horton was revered as a fair and honest judge trying to conduct an impartial trial, and even today he often wins high points. From what you read of the court transcripts and the judge's behavior, do you think he was impartial or simply less racist than his peers?
10. Do you think Judge Horton should have forced the young doctor to testify even if it meant ruining his career?
11. When the play about Scottsboro opened on Broadway, one critic wrote, "When the curtain fell...I experienced a sensation the theatre never had given me before...I had seen reality in grease-paint." Discuss the comparative advantages and disadvantages of fictional and nonfictional accounts of historical events.
12. Andy Wright said upon his parole almost twenty years after he was taken off the train in Scottsboro, "I'm not mad because the girl lied about me. If she's still living, I feel sorry for her because I don't guess she sleeps much at night." Ruby and Victoria, on the other hand, died raging that justice had not been done. Why do you think Wright could forgive and the girls could not?
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