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Scottsboro boys get posthumous pardon in 1931 ala. Rape case

TheDemSocialist

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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Alabama granted posthumous pardons on Thursday to three of the Scottsboro Boys, a group of black teenagers whose fight against false charges that they raped two white women in 1931 helped initiate the modern civil rights movement.The action by the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles clears the last of theScottsboro boys who had yet to be exonerated: Charles Weems, Andy Wright andHaywood Patterson. The three were among nine youths accused of gang-raping two women aboard a freight train in Alabama and convicted by all-white juries in the town of Scottsboro.
The group's legal journey to fight the convictions and win new trials sparked protests over racial injustice and two landmark rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court.
"Today, we were able to undo a black eye that has been held over Alabama for many years," said Eddie Cook, the board's assistant executive director.


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Scottsboro Boys granted posthumous pardon in 1931 Ala. rape case - CBS News

Finally some good new that has come out of Alabama.
 
Good news .. but it undoes nothing.
I agree it undoes nothing but its some good news.
Just kinda adds some closure.

Additionally, the civil rights movement was sparked by the murder of Emmitt Till.

Civil rights movement could be said to go back all the way to Plessy v Ferguson
 
Good news .. but it undoes nothing.

Additionally, the civil rights movement was sparked by the murder of Emmitt Till.

It was really started by the lynching of Ed Johnson, but in the end they are all just random names in history of no real importance.
 
It was really started by the lynching of Ed Johnson, but in the end they are all just random names in history of no real importance.

It was really started by the Plessy Decision...
 
Oh haha i gotcha. Hard to pick up on the interwebbzzzzz


Well, it is dry sarcasm. My students and kids can never tell when I am serious or not because I very rarely get mad or raise my voice and say things so dead pan that it is difficult to know.
 
I agree it undoes nothing but its some good news.
Just kinda adds some closure.



Civil rights movement could be said to go back all the way to Plessy v Ferguson

True on both counts brother.

However, the final straw was Emmitt Till .. which led to the rise a of a minister from Atlanta named King.
 
In 1955, a 14-year-old African American teenager was brutally murdered by white men while visiting relatives in Mississippi. His name was Emmett Till. His murder and the subsequent trial of his accused killers became a lightning rod for moral outrage, both at the time and to this day. The case was not just about the murder of a teenage boy. It was also about a new generation of young people committing their lives to social change. As historian Robin Kelley states, The Emmett Till case was a spark for a new generation to commit their lives to social change. They said, "We're not gonna die like this. Instead, we're gonna live and transform the South so people won't have to die like this." And if anything, if any event of the 1950s inspired young people to be committed to that kind of change, it was the lynching of Emmett Till.
A Pivotal Moment in the Civil Rights Movement | Facing History and Ourselves
 
It was really started by the Plessy Decision...

How so since Plessy just reaffirmed what already existed? It wasn't until Johnson was lynched about a decade later that the first steps were taken to change the status quo.
 
How so since Plessy just reaffirmed what already existed? It wasn't until Johnson was lynched about a decade later that the first steps were taken to change the status quo.

My point was that it didn't have a "start time/date".

The fight for equal rights for blacks had been going on in some capacity for well over a hundred years before MLK and such. The Emancipation Proclamation. The 14th Amendment. Etc.
 
I'm glad that AL has cleared their names. It's nice for the heirs.

I don't really like this topic.
 
It's a nice but ultimately symbolic and nearly worthless gesture. They shouldn't have gotten a pardon. They should have been EXONERATED of any and all crimes. However, I'm sure they didn't because racism apologists would have seen this as some sort of reparations, AA treatment.
 
True on both counts brother.

However, the final straw was Emmitt Till .. which led to the rise a of a minister from Atlanta named King.

I agree after Emmitt Till thats when it took off started to get more and more press and started to become a larger and larger movement.
 
My point was that it didn't have a "start time/date".

The fight for equal rights for blacks had been going on in some capacity for well over a hundred years before MLK and such. The Emancipation Proclamation. The 14th Amendment. Etc.

Well I wouldn't agree that the Emancipation Proclamation had anything to do with equal rights, but that is a conversation for another day.
 
I agree after Emmitt Till thats when it took off started to get more and more press and started to become a larger and larger movement.

After hundreds of years of abuse and terrorism in the United States, the murder of Till is when we recognized that rights is America are not determined by what is just, fair, humane, civil .. or what Jesus would do. Rights in America are solely determined by what you can DEMAND. If you cannot demand them .. they are not your rights.
 
After hundreds of years of abuse and terrorism in the United States, the murder of Till is when we recognized that rights is America are not determined by what is just, fair, humane, civil .. or what Jesus would do. Rights in America are solely determined by what you can DEMAND. If you cannot demand them .. they are not your rights.

Very true and well said.
 
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