The Scottsboro Boys

 

March 24, 1931: The notorious Scottsboro case begins with the arrest of a group of young Negroes at Paint Rock, Alabama. Because the alleged victims were both white and all the alleged perpetrators black, this is almost always given a racial angle, but the bottom line is that the lies of Victoria Price resulted in years of Hell for all concerned. For the complete story of the case, check out this academic website.

Early on in these proceedings, the extremely fair-minded Judge Horton made the following pronouncement:

“History, sacred and profane, and the common experience of mankind teach us that women of the character shown in this case are prone for selfish reasons to make false accusations both of rape and of insult upon the slightest provocation or even without provocation for ulterior purposes.”

This is what is commonly referred to nowadays as a rape myth. Having read this far, the reader will probably have already reached a different conclusion!


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