Scottsboro

Scottsboro is really historical novel writing at its finest. I was completely absorbed in this skillful blend of fact and fiction, becoming engrossed in the story and learning a lot too. What more could you ask for? That the author, Ellen Feldman, take on sexism, elitism, communism, racism, antisemitism, sexuality and more in one book? And pull it off? Well she does and she does. The author notes in an afterword that when she told people she was writing about Scottsboro, this news was often greeted enthusiastically, only to be followed with a request to, "refresh my memory." Like those the author talked to, I too, distinctly remembered that the case of the Scottsboro Boys was a landmark one, that the Scottsboro Boys were accused of the rape of a white woman, and that the city's name is something of a rallying cry for racial equality in the justice system. But nothing more. What I failed to recall, or was probably never taught, were all the amazing intricacies of the case, how the case affected the criminal justice system, and, sadly, what the ultimate outcome of the case was. Meanwhile, I had never considered the fascinating times that the trial of the Scottsboro Boys occurred in, and how this soup of modernity and old-fashioned values would make for such an interesting novel. Scottsboro tells the story of those infamous boys as well as one of their accusers, Ruby Bates, mostly through the eyes of Alice Whittier, girl reporter. Alice is apparently an amalgamation of a few woman reporters of the time. While she starts off as a bit of a stereotypical Girl Friday or film noir wise-gal, she quickly fleshes out into a perceptive narrator who also provides a window into the sexism and political climate of the time. Alice sets off, like everyone else, to get her story on the 6 Scottsboro boys accused of raping two white women (prostitutes, the truth must be told) on a train where all were hitching a ride. Inspired by the idea to visit the accusers, she also travels to get the story from Victoria Price, a hardened woman who gives up few secrets, and Ruby Bates, a confused young girl with a desperate desire not to be looked down upon. The case itself, however, provides the most riveting material. And while Ellen Feldman cannot be given credit for how history plays out, she can be given credit for writing it masterfully. I read greedily to discover what my memory couldn't provide -- how does the case turn out? What about the appeals? Will the anger and hate simmering under the surface boil over? Well, maybe you know, but if you don't, it's really exciting. Meanwhile, the real jewel here is the story's other narrator, Ruby Bates, a confused tramp (in both senses of the word) whose voice rings out loud and clear. Her dialect is so deftly written -- never so overdone that it becomes distracting -- that I could truly hear Ruby. She's not a heroine, to be sure, but she is written as a very complex, very human character, and Ellen Feldman should be proud o

I read Scottsboro until the small hours of the morning, then woke early to finish it. The novel is a stunning achievement. It is so very real: I felt myself in Manhattan in the 1930's in newspaper offices and then in the jails and streets and courthouses of Alabama, and in Mrs. Roosevelt's private rooms in the White House. I felt the characters with visceral intensity as if they were brushing my sleeve. The novel is told from the points of view of two utterly different women beginning in the Great Depression of 1931: Alice, the young upper class reporter living modestly on her trust fund who "has outrage to spare" for the nine black young men called the Scottsboro boys who are wrongfully accused of raping two white, semi-prostitute girls; and Ruby, one of the girls, terrified, living in the worse squalor, suspicious of everyone, almost willing to sell her soul for a pair of nice shoes. This former mill worker vacillates back and forth between lying in terror that she was raped; then rising as a semi-educated, flaunting heroine dressed gorgeously by supporters and speaking all over the country in defense of the boys, and then cravenly lying again in her old age, desperate for approval and money. It is the clash and sympathy and odd relationship between the woman reporter who has beautiful shoes and this beaten-down mill girl who holds the fate of the nine young men in her hands that is the remarkable center of this remarkable novel. Outside of this, a large cast of judges, lawyers, reporters, the poor, social reformers, jailors and the condemned make a fascinating and complex story of miscarried justice which played out over thirty years of the last century. A great book! Buy it and read it!

Thirty years ago I saw the TV production "Judge Horton and the Scottsboro Boys": this made a strong impression on me. So when 10 days ago I was browsing E. Bukowsky's reviews and saw this book I went out and grabbed a copy. What you get is a powerfully-told tale that will stick with you long after you've finished the book. It's a story of courage, cowardice, political expediency, prejudice, hypocrisy, and a truly evil perversion of justice. The time and place may seem remote now, but it's only true that a few things have changed: legal lynchings still exist, and too many people are happy to sacrifice others for political gain. The two storytellers are Alice Whittier (fictional), a reporter from New York, and Ruby Bates (real), one of the two women who claimed that they had been raped. Other characters include the twelve victims (those falsely accused of rape), prosecutors, judges of various stripes, Sam Lebowitz, and Communist Party members. Interests were decidedly mixed. At several points in the story, some of the people from New York ask each other "Would it be better for the Cause if the 12 are saved or executed?" The prosecutor wants to ride the case to the Governorship of Alabama. Judge Horton (at the first retrial) is a man of integrity. One of the doctors who examined the women tells Judge Horton that the women were not raped, but if he testifies his career as a doctor will be finished: he never testifies, and there's a fascinating question of whether we should judge him as courageous for telling the judge (which few at the time would have done) or cowardly for not testifying, even at the cost of his career. We are also left to ponder a situation where the Alabama Supreme Court rules, consistently with almost all of the white establishment in the state, that the word of a white woman--even a part-time prostitute--is sufficient evidence in and by itself to execute a dozen black men. One of the courageous people is Alice Whittier. Not only did the courts of Alabama not let women on juries, in cases like this they were not even permitted in the court itself: an exception had to be made in the case of a female reporter. Whittier is spat on, threatened with lynching, and even arrested and hauled off to another town for intimidation. But Whittier is fictional: this leads to the question of whether there were any women reporters actually present. There are moments in the book that seem surreal. After the first two trials (as I recall) the prosecutor approaches Leibowitz with an offer of a deal: he's willing to let about half of the accused go free if he can execute the rest. Ponder that for a bit. This seems to suggest that the prosecutor doesn't believe that the accused are actually guilty--but that to say so would mean that he didn't believe a white woman, and he would commit political suicide: he needs some executions. Also, if you feel that the book is about bygone times, and we've gone way beyond such things now,

The case of the Scottsboro boys is well documented. On March 25, 1931, nine black youths were riding the Alabama Great Southern freight train when they got into an altercation with a group of white men. After the nine "Negroes" (some of whom were in their early teens) got off the train, they were summarily arrested for raping two white women. In her semi-fictionalized account of this incident and its aftermath, Ellen Feldman provides the shocking details of a shameful episode in our nation's history, putting the events into their political, cultural, and economic context. She demonstrates the noxious effects of anti-Semitism, misogyny, and racial prejudice in the Deep South, and incorporates the stories of some of the individuals who played key roles in what would ultimately become a cause célèbre. There are two first person narrators. One, Alice Whittier, is a product of Feldman's imagination. Whittier is a tough and ambitious journalist, as well as a feminist with leftist leanings. Her reporter's unerring instincts lead her to believe that her work on the Scottsboro story might boost her career. As Clarence Norris, one of the defendants, said, "For lots of folks, us boys was nothing more than rungs on a ladder." He made a good point, since lawyers, judges, "do-gooders," Communist party members, and other hangers-on shamelessly exploited the defendants and their accusers for their own ends. Meanwhile, for years to come, the nine men would suffer both emotional and physical torment. The other narrator is Ruby Bates, a pitifully poor seventeen-year-old mill worker who is functionally illiterate. Ruby's close friend, Victoria Price, persuades her to give false testimony. In the Jim Crow south, all-white male juries ignored the glaring inconsistencies in Ruby's and Veronica's statements. The first trial and subsequent retrials occurred against the backdrop of the Great Depression, a time of crushing poverty when sixteen million Americans were unemployed and two hundred thousand young people under twenty-one wandered from place to place like hoboes. For the downtrodden Ruby and Victoria, sudden fame transformed them into overnight celebrities. Strangers bought them new clothes and showered them with attention. For the first time in their lives, they felt important. Victoria was the more hardened of the two (she "had a mean streak a mile wide") and never did recant her statements. Ruby, on the other hand, came to regret her lies; she worried that because of her sins, her eternal soul would "go to torment" in the hereafter. "Scottsboro" is a beautifully realized portrait of an era when lower class white people were so browbeaten that they vented their frustrations on those who could not fight back. It is a tragic account of a terrible miscarriage of justice as well as an engrossing tale about a principled journalist who dares to expose the truth, no matter how unpopular it makes her. There are a few lighter moments when Alice takes time out fr

March 25, 1931. This infamous day in Alabama begins an American tragedy that will play out on a national stage for the next five decades. When nine black youths are removed from a freight train and arrested by an irate white mob, accused by two white girls of rape, the imagination of a nation is engaged in an epic battle that revisits ancient enmity between north and south, old prejudices ignited and further inflamed by a country in the desperate throes of the Great Depression, thousands wandering in search of odd jobs, any diversion from a life grown mean and humble. Poverty and race simmer uncomfortably in hobo camps that spring up around the railroad tracks, easy women plying their trade, no better off than the men they approach. This is Jim Crow land. In an attempt to deflect interest in their presence on the train, the two young women claim they have been harmed by the boys; the affects reverberate across old wounds, giving vent to racial hatred and anti-Semitism, awakening the cause of white Southern womanhood, capturing the attention of a burgeoning Communist Party and dramatizing the subtle inequities of justice. Careers will be made and broken, New York lawyers finding national acclaim, local prosecutors playing to a snickering audience, all before inscrutable judges and the silent, intimidated defendants. From the perspective of an independent female reporter, Alice Whittier, the drama unfolds, trial after trial, hearings by the highest court of the land, public interest captured by the recanting of one of the women, Ruby Bates. Victoria Price remains adamant, while Ruby suffers pangs of conscience, which Alice Whittier mines in search of truth. Contrasting the incarceration of the falsely-accused Scottsboro boys with the carnival-like atmosphere of packed courtrooms, Alice's voice is sometimes overridden by Ruby's complaints. As much a victim in her own way as those she has named, Ruby is a product of her culture and limited resources, fearing only the damnation of her soul. Hinging on the testimony of such women, nine lives remain in limbo, most dying in jail before the case is adjudicated, only one, Clarence Norris, pardoned by Governor George Wallace after the Voting Rights Act of 1976. In Feldman's decisive prose, the years march by, outrage a by-product of a deplorable injustice, a fierce legal tug-of-war between the passions of north and south. Dissecting the case from every angle, Feldman ignores no aspect, the New York lawyers, the fledgling NAACP, a prison system that submits prisoners to the daily humiliations of a meager existence, a hungry press tacking back and forth between Alabama and New York in search of new stories, Hoover replaced by Roosevelt with an opportunity to turn the economy around, and a world war, the country finally freed from the grip of the Depression. Years pass, the Scottsboro "boys" grow old on death row or in local jails, their fate in the hands of an unreliable witness and a jury system that