Comics in the Curriculum

Race and Ethnicity > Scottsboro, Alabama

Scottsboro, Alabama: a story in linoleum cuts. Lin Shi Khan and Tony Perez, 1935.

Butler KF224.S34 K49 2002

In 1931, nine young black men, referred to as the Scottsboro Boys, were convicted of raping a white woman on a train going through Alabama.  They were sentenced to death, although they claimed never even to have seen the woman before.  The International Labor Defense, a group founded by the Communist Party USA, worked tirelessly to get the Boys a new trial. In 1935, two artists recounted the story of the arrest, trial, and near lynching of the Boys, placing their story in the context of African-American history.

 

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