Scottsboro, Alabama

"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 a country 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. Lee discovered the book as part of a gift to the Tamiment Library by the family of Joseph North, an important figure in the Communist Party USA, and an editor at the seminal left-wing journal, the New Masses."--BOOK JACKET.