After reading about the “Scottsboro Nine” in Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore’s “Defying Dixie,” I was appalled by some of the things that could slide back in the early 1930’s just because of the color of someone’s skin. The “Scottsboro Nine” refers to the nine black boys that were falsely accused of rape by two white women while aboard a train in 1931. The two women were not ideal citizens, both having multiple legal charges on their records. But they had the one thing they needed to be perceived as always honest, white skin. Before this time period, if a white woman were to accuse a black man of rape then no questions would be asked. It went a little bit different here with the Paint Rock police asking the two women a lot of questions and having them go through a medical examination. The examination showed that the women had sex but not recently enough for the rape allegations. Nonetheless, eight out of the nine boys were sentenced to death. Thirteen-year-old, Roy Wright, was the only one not sentenced to death. Protests began and one of the women eventually came out and made it know that she was not raped by any of those boys. All sentencings were eventually lessened, but most of the nine still served jail time, one all the way until 1950, while being completely innocent. Personally, I believe each of the two women should both be held accountable for the false accusations and serve time. All nine of those boys will forever feel the effects of being called a rapist and having to serve sentences. One quote that I took away from this is on page 125 and states, “Victoria Price and Ruby Bates put up their whiteness cards as a ticket to ride the rails, to drink and have sex with men while sleeping rough and wearing overalls.” This quote I just feel shows how dangerous the time was for black males.

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