Books about Scottsboro from Amazon.com

A powerful novel about race, class, sex, and a lie that refused to die.

Alabama, 1931. A posse stops a freight train and arrests nine black youths. Their crime: fighting with white boys. Then two white girls emerge from another freight car, and fast as anyone can say Jim Crow, the cry of rape goes up. One of the girls sticks to her story. The other changes her tune, again and again. A young journalist, whose only connection to the incident is her overheated social conscience, fights to save the nine youths from the electric chair, redeem the girl who repents her lie, and make amends for her own past. Intertwining historical actors and fictional characters, stirring racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism into an explosive brew, Scottsboro is a novel of a shocking injustice that convulsed the nation and reverberated around the world, destroyed lives, forged careers, and brought out the worst and the best in the men and women who fought for the cause..
Price: $9.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

With a New Introduction

Scottsboro tells the riveting story of one of this country's most famous and controversial court cases and a tragic and revealing chapter in the history of the American South. In 1931, two white girls claimed they were savagely raped by nine young black men aboard a freight train moving across northeastern Alabama. The young men-ranging in age from twelve to nineteen-were quickly tried, and eight were sentenced to death. The age of the defendants, the stunning rapidity of their trials, and the harsh sentences they received sparked waves of protest and attracted national attention during the 1930s. Originally published in 1970, Scottsboro triggered a new interest in the case, sparking two film documentaries, several Hollywood docudramas, two autobiographies, and numerous popular and scholarly articles on the case. In his new introduction, Dan T. Carter looks back more than thirty-five years after he first wrote about the case, asking what we have learned that is new about it and what relevance the story of Scottsboro still has in the twenty-first century.

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK

"This detailed, unembellished, utterly engrossing history is a work of clarification, and the author's ability to make the reader aware of so much . . . is remarkable."--New Yorker

"Carter has written the whole sorry story in vigorous narrative style, wisely using excerpts from the trials which to this day evoke a sense of horror at what can pass for justice in America."--Publishers Weekly

"Carter brilliantly traces the celebrated case from its beginnings. . . . His thorough research, careful organization of the findings, clear appraisals presented in readable prose, all combine to make this the definitive study of what was a tragedy for the entire nation and not merely for the South."--Choice

"Carter is to be congratulated on his effort, both historically and stylistically. It's a triumph of proper research and should remain the definitive study of the affair."--Nation

"Not only a well-documented piece of research, but a spine-tingling story as well."--Library Journal

"[Carter's] research is meticulous and exhaustive, his material well organized, and he leaves few questions about the subject unanswered."--Georgia Historical Quarterly

"An extraordinary book about one of the most celebrated legal contests in the annals of American jurisprudence. . . . Shorn of muckraking and partisan preaching, his volume is historical writing at its best. Indeed, it has all the attributes of a prize-winning book."--Georgia Review

"In parts, Scottsboro is exciting courtroom drama; in other sections the tension is reminiscent of swiftly paced detective fiction. It is always good history."--Journal of American History

"A scholarly work is seldom put in the book-you-can't-put-down category, but Scottsboro is just such a volume. [Carter] is to be congratulated for producing a scholarly volume, objectively written, presented so as to convey a sense of drama and excitement throughout."--North Carolina Historical Review

528 pages, 32 Halftones, 6.125 x 9.25.
Price: $19.75 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Tourists, traders, and bargain hunters congregating in the town square for Scottsboro's traditional First Monday Trade Day initially thought the explosion they heard was a sonic boom. On that morning of December 4, 1972, people in the small north Alabama town were shocked when they learned that a bomb consisting of five sticks of dynamite had ripped through the car of a prominent attorney, Loy Campbell, blowing off both his legs and nearly taking his life. Investigators found Campbell barely alive and his disintegrated car in his driveway just across the street from the school attended by his six-year-old daughter. What followed this horror were two years of unyielding investigation resulting in the arrest of the town's wealthiest landowner, Hugh Otis Bynum, great-grandson of the founder of the town. Bynum was charged with masterminding and funding the attempt on Campbell's life. His arrest and the trial that followed pitted Bill Baxley, a young, ambitious Alabama attorney general, against the state's most prominent defense lawyers..
Price: $79.29 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Nine black teenagers were accused of raping two white women on a train in 1931 in northern Alabama. They were arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to death in the town of Scottsboro in little more than two weeks. The "Scottsboro Boys" case rapidly captured public attention and became a lightning rod for fundamental issues of social justice including racial discrimination, class oppression, and legal fairness. Involving years of appeals, the Scottsboro trials resulted in two landmark U.S. Supreme Court rulings and were a vortex for the sometimes-competing interests of the American Communist Party, the NAACP, and the young men themselves. The cases resulted in a damning portrayal of "southern justice" and corresponding social mores in several national and international media outlets, and in a spirited defense of the judicial system and prevailing cultural norms in other news reports, particularly in the South. Here, Acker details the alleged crimes, their legal aftermath, and their immediate and enduring social significance as evidenced in media portrayals and other forms of popular culture. Using extensive media reports, including contemporaneous newspaper accounts and interpretations of the proceedings, as well as the sallies of champions of various organizations and social causes, the author illustrates the role of the media in the cases and the effect the cases had on society at the time. In addition to tracing the history of the cases and their media portrayal, the book explores the legacy of the Scottsboro trials and appeals. It examines several issues relevant to the cases that, even today, have enduring significance to law and popular perceptions of justice, including capital punishment, racial discrimination, innocence, the composition and functioning of trial juries, the quality of legal counsel for indigents, evidentiary issues in rape cases, and media interactions with the courts. More than a true crime tale, this book takes readers through the crime but also illustrates its enduring legacy..
Price: $24.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"Wow! This is political art at its most powerful These evocative images outrage and provoke, leaving an indelible impression of an unjust world at an unjust time. Scottsboro, Alabama will incite you to join the struggle for racial equality and justice." —Alan Dershowitz, author of Supreme Injustice

"A stunning artifact, Scottsboro, Alabama's narrative and images capture the tragedy of race in the American South. I haven't seen anything this tersely powerful in years." — Nell Irvin Painter, author of Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol

In 1931, nine black youths were falsely accused of raping two white women on a freight train traveling through northern Alabama. They were arrested and tried in four days, convicted of rape, and eight of them were sentenced to death. The ensuing legal battle spanned six years and involved two landmark decisions by the Supreme Court. One of the most well known and controversial legal decisions of our time, the Scottsboro case ignited the collective emotions of the country, which was still struggling to come to terms with fundamental issues of racial equality.

Scottsboro, Alabama, which consists of 118 exceptionally powerful linoleum prints, provides a unique graphic history of one of the most infamous, racially-charged episodes in the annals of the American judicial system, and of the racial and class struggle of the time. Originally printed in Seattle in 1935, this hitherto unknown document, of which no other known copies exist, is presented here for the first time. It includes a foreword by Robin D.G. Kelley and an introduction by Andrew H. Lee. Mr. Lee discovered the book as part of a gift to the Tamiment Library by the family of Joe North, an important figure in the Communist Party-USA, and an editor at the seminal left-wing journal, the New Masses.

A true historical find and an excellent tool for teaching the case itself and the period which it so indelibly marked, this book allows us to see the Scottsboro case through a unique and highly provocative lens..
Price: $8.33 [Notify me when price goes down.]