• 1931
• March
• trial
• police
• police brutality
• Tennessee
• Herbert Hoover

Southern Tennessee - Nine (9) Black American youths rode a freight train with several white males and two white women. Near the Lookout Mountain tunnel, a fight erupted between the white and Black American youths.

The whites got kicked off the train. They went to a sheriff, from the nearby town, Paint Rock, Alabama.

The white youths claimed the Black youths assaulted them on the train. The sheriff raised a posse. He ordered the posse to search for and 'capture every Negro on the train.'

All Black American passengers from the train were arrested. All were charged with assault, by the posse.

The Scottsboro boys were put on trial. It was an all-white jury, white judge, and white prosecutor. 8 of the youths were convicted. They were sentenced to death.

As a result of appeals to the United States Supreme Court, none were executed. The Court ruled that race could not be used to exclude a juror.

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