[CIVIL RIGHTS]. A small archive of items related to the Scottsboro Trial, including
Save Our Lives, They Must Not Burn Dec. 7, Join the Fight to Free Them! New York: Scottsboro-Herndon Defense Fund, n.d. Small 8vo pamphlet (central vertical crease, horizontal rip to front page, dampstaining, and wear to edges and corners). Includes a tear-away mail-in slip for donation to the Scottsboro Herndon Defense Fund. Back page includes facsimile letter from Patterson and Norris, expressing a desire to be represented by Walter Pollack and Osmond Fraenkel.

HERNDON, Angelo. The Scottsboro Boys: Four Freed! Five to Go! New York: Workers Library Publishers, Inc., 1937. Small 8vo. (Some clipping to corners, slight chipping and rips to some pages.) Original illustrated wrappers (clipped right corners, toning).

Flash. Vol. 1, No. 22. Washington, DC: Flash Publishing Company, 2 August 1937. 8 7/8 x 11 7/8 in. Staple-bound original wrappers (multiple pages fully separated from binding, chipping and loss to edges, discoloration throughout). Issue features a 2-page article entitled "Five Scottsboro Boys Will Not Die" including an image of Ozie Powell preparing to have a bullet removed from his head after being shot by Sheriff Sandlin.

The "Scottsboro Boys" as they came to be called, were a group of nine African American preteens, teenagers, and young men falsely accused of raping two white women on a freight train in northern Alabama in March of 1931. Eight of the defendants were convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white jury, while the ninth was granted a mistrial by the judge on account of his youth. Public outcry and protests in the north succeeded in getting the convictions overturned by the Supreme Court in 1932, citing the defendants' inadequate legal representation. The process of retrial, reconviction, and appeal went on for years, and ultimately the "Scottsboro Boys" served a collective 100+ years in prison. The Scottsboro cases, or rather the widespread indignation and national dialogue they sparked, led to two important Supreme Court decisions reached in 1935 regarding the exclusion of African Americans from jury service. The injustice suffered by the "Scottsboro Boys" also inspired a myriad of popular works including Richard Wright's 1940 novel, Native Son.
This lot is located in Cincinnati.

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