Timeline: The Nine Scottsboro Boys

Mar 25, 1931

Southern Railroad freight train.

March 25: In the depths of the Depression, a fight breaks out between white and black young men who are riding as hoboes on a Southern Railroad freight train. The train is stopped by an angry posse in Paint Rock, Alabama, and nine black youths are arrested for assault. Rape charges are added, following accusations from two white women who have also come off the train, Victoria Price and Ruby Bates. The accused are taken to Scottsboro, Alabama, the Jackson County seat. The women are examined by D

Mar 30, 1931

A grand jury indicts all nine "Scottsboro Boys."

Apr 6, 1931

Before Judge A. E. Hawkins, Clarence Norris and Charlie Weems are tried, convicted, and sentenced to death.

Clarence Norris and Charlie Weems are tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. Haywood Patterson is tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. Olen Montgomery, Ozie Powell, Willie Roberson, Eugene Williams, and Andy Wright are tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. The case against Roy Wright, aged 13, ends in a hung jury when 11 jurors seek a death sentence, and one votes for life imprisonment.

Jun 22, 1931

Alabama Supreme Court

The executions of the defendants are stayed pending appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court.

Jan 1, 1932

The NAACP withdraws from the case.

Jan 5, 1932

A letter from Ruby Bates to a boyfriend surfaces; in it

she denies having been raped.

Mar 24, 1932

The Alabama Supreme Court, voting 6-1.

Upholds the convictions of seven of the defendants, granting Eugene Williams a new trial because he was a juvenile at the time of his conviction

May 27, 1932

The United States Supreme Court agrees to hear the case.

Apr 6, 1933

Ruby Bates appears as a surprise witness for the defense

denying that any rape occurred and testifying that she was with Victoria Price for the whole train ride. Her assertion that she and Price were with boyfriends the night before explains the presence of semen in their vaginas. On the stand, Dr. Bridges admits that the sperm found in his examination were non-motile, and indicates that Victoria Price showed few physical signs of having been forcibly raped by six men, as she claimed, but he refuses to say how old the semen could have been.

Apr 9, 1933

Patterson is found guilty

and sentenced to death by electric chair.

Apr 18, 1933

Judge Horton sets the sentence of death for Patterson

and then suspends it on a motion for a new trial. Then, the judge postpones the trials of the other defendants because tensions in town are running too high to expect a "just and impartial verdict."