THE CASE OF THE "SCOTTSBORO BOYS"

The Scottsboro case was not simply an isolated instance of injustice, the Communists argued, but represented a common manifestation of national oppression and class rule in the South. Maintaining that a fair and impartial trial was impossible, the Party and its auxiliaries publicized the case widely in order to apply mass pressure on the Alabama justice system. Protests erupted throughout the country and as far away as Paris, Moscow, and South Africa, and the governor of Alabama was bombarded with telegrams, postcards and letters demanding the immediate release of the "Scottsboro Boys." Through Scottsboro and other related cases, black and white Communists gained entrance into churches lodges, and clubs in the African-American community, and eventually the ILD was regarded by some as a welcome addition to the panoply of "racial defense" organizations. Moreover, although the "Scottsboro Boys" the defendants were denied the right of counsel. For the new Scottsboro trials, whichopened on March 27, 1933, the ILD had retained renowned criminal lawyer Samuel Leibowitz. More significant, a month before the trial date Ruby Bates repudiated the rape charge. Yet, despite new evidence and a brilliant defense, the all-white jury still found the Scottsboro defendants guilty--a verdict that seemed to buttress the Communists' interpretation of justice under capitalism and augmented the ILD's popularity in the black community. In fact, pressure from black militants and some sympathetic clergy and middle-class spokesmen compelled the virulently anticommunist NAACP secretary, Walter White, to develop a working relationship with the ILD in the spring of 1933. Several months later, however, in an unprecedented decision, Alabama circuit Judge James E. Horton overturned the March 1933 verdict and ordered a new trial.

Following a number of incredibly foolish legal and ethical mistakes (including an attempt to bribe Victoria Price), star lawyer Samuel Leibowitz bolted the ILD, which began to lose its prestige in the mid-1930s. With support of conservative black leaders, white liberals, and clergymen, Leibowitz founded the American Scottsboro Committee (ASC) in 1934. However, hostilities between the two bodies were slightly mitigated a year later when the ILD turned to the coalition-building politics of the Popular Front. In a tenuous alliance the ILD, ASC, NAACP, and ACLU, formed the Scottsboro Defense Committee, which opted for a more reformist, legally oriented campaign in lieu of mass tactics. After failing to win the defendants' release in a 1936 trial, the SDC agreed to a strange plea bargain in 1937 whereby four defendants were released and the remaining five endured lengthy prison sentences--the last defendant was not freed until 1950.

Although the ILD did not win the defendants' unconditional release, its campaign to "Free the Scottsboro Boys" had tremendous legal and political implications during the early 1930s. For example, in one of the ILD's many appeals, a 1935 U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the defendant's constitutional rights were violated because blacks were systematically excluded from the jury rolls--a landmark opinion that spurred a battle to include African Americans on the jury rolls. Moreover, the realization that limited mass interracial action was possible challenged traditional liberalism and the politics of racial accommodation; the often scorned tactics of "mass pressure" would eventually be a precedent for civil rights activity two decades later.

--Robin D. G. Kelley