The Central Park Five

As we all know or most of us from seeing the documentary on Netflix called ” When They See Us,” the Central Park Five were a group of four young African Americans and one Hispanic who were imprisoned falsely for the assault and rape of a white female jogger named Trisha Meili. After the attack Meili lay in a coma for 12 days. She was a 28 year old investment banker and the news of her being allegedly assaulted by a group of young black men set the racist hearts on fire. In fact they rounded up about thirty suspects and of those thirty, the four African American teenagers and one Hispanic teenager were the only ones charged and eventually imprisoned. This happened in 1989. Fast forward to to 2002. Matias Reyes, a convicted murderer and rapist confessed to raping Meili. DNA evidence confirmed his guilt and he confessed he alone rape the jogger. The same year the convictions against the five men were vacated and the charges withdrawn. In 2014 the men successfully sued the city of New York and received $41 million in damages. Additional lawsuits are pending against the State of New York for $50 million.

In Alabama a similar injustice occurred on March 25, 1931. “The Scottsboro Boys,” a group of nine African Americans were accused of raping a white women on a train they were hoboing on. The name “Scottsboro” came from the name of the town where they were first held. The alleged incident happened on a train in Tennessee. They were tried in Alabama because that’s where they stopped the train and where Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, told them that they had been raped by a group of black teenagers. The story goes like this, “A fight broke out between the white and black groups near the Lookout Mountain tunnel, and the whites were kicked off the train. The whites went to a sheriff in the nearby town Paint Rock, Alabama, and claimed that they were assaulted by the blacks on the train. The sheriff gathered a posse and gave orders to search for and “capture every Negro on the train. The posse arrested all black passengers on the train for assault.”

That’s right, every black swing one was hauled off that train and stepped to jail, where the sweet white virgins Victoria Price and Ruby Bates were waiting. “There was no evidence (beyond the women’s testimony) pointing to the guilt of the accused, yet that was irrelevant due to the prevalent racism in the South at the time, according to which black men were constantly being policed by white men for signs of sexual interest in white women, which could be punishable by lynching. Price and Bates may have told the police that they were raped to divert police attention from themselves. They were both suspected of being prostitutes and not only risked being arrested for it, but they could also have been prosecuted for violating the Mann Act by crossing a state line “for immoral purposes.” That’s how they got Jack Johnson.. the Mann act.

Now back in those days in Alabama, rape was a capitol offence, they would kill you for that. If you was black, they would whoop that azz first, then hang you from a tree and set you on fire. Afterwards they would chop little pieces off your body and keep them for souvenirs. You know damn well the average black man was not even thinking about raping no white woman in 1931 in Alabama. Anywho, when Vicky and her friend used the “R” word, it was on. Soon a lynch mob gathered at the jail demanding the boys be turned over to them. Now I know you ain’t going to believe this, but the sheriff of the town stood in front of the jail and addressed the mob, saying he would kill the first person to come through the door. The story goes he then walked across the street, called the Governor and had him send the National Guard to secure the jail. He bedda call somebody… After the drinks were passed around the mob, he could have been labeled a “N-word lover,” and we would have known this episode as the Scottsdale 10 Hanging’s.

The prisoners were brought to court by 118 Alabama guardsmen, armed with machine guns. Yessiree , it took a small army to get those boys across the street to the courthouse. There was a crowd of thousands. Once they got the boys to the court house, the judge and the prosecutor had made plan to wrap it up in a couple days. They tried them nine boys in two days, one trial after the other and the all black jury was seated. You know I’m just messing with you… the only thing black in that courthouse was the defendants and the ink pens. This is a long story.. just making sure you still up. Where was I.. oh yeah.. The all white jury was seated. The boys were represented by Milo Moody, a 69-year-old attorney who had not defended a case in decades and he was assisted by Stephen Roddy, a Chattanooga, Tennessee, real estate lawyer. Believe me, there was going to be a mass hanging by the end of the week.

Clarence Norris and Charlie Weems were tried first. Now Vicky stated that she saw the fight and that one of the boys had a gun and made the white boys get off the train. They then raped her and Ruby. Dr. Bridges testified that his examination of Victoria Price found no vaginal tearing (which would have indicated rape), and that she had had semen in her for several hours. Ruby Bates failed to mention that either she or Price were raped until she was cross-examined. The prosecution had some locals say they saw the white boys thrown off the train and that was the end of their case. They did not call any of the white boys who had allegedly been kicked off the train at gun point. Now this is where the #@!! get crazy. Defendant Clarence Norris stunned the courtroom by implicating the other defendants. He denied participating in the fight or being in the car where the fight took place. But he said that he saw the alleged rapes by the other blacks from his spot atop the next boxcar. Maybe it was the ear necklaces’s he saw the deputies wearing or maybe it was the bullet he found on his bed in the cell, but whatever it was, he threw the others under the bus. During closing, the prosecution said, “If you don’t give these men death sentences, the electric chair might as well be abolished.” The defense made no closing argument, nor did it address the sentencing of the death penalty for their clients. There were bullets on their beds too apparently.

The trial for Haywood Patterson occurred while the Norris and Weems cases were still under consideration by the jury. When the jury returned its verdict from the first trial, the jury from the second trial was taken out of the courtroom. When the verdicts of guilty were announced, the courtroom erupted in cheers, as did the crowd outside. A band, there to play for a show of Ford Motor Company cars outside, began playing Hail, Hail the Gang’s All Here and There’ll be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight. Haywood Patterson was found guilt and sentenced to die in the electric chair.

Powell, Roberson, Williams, Montgomery and Wright were tried next. It was barely five minutes since they had convicted and sentenced Haywood. This trial went just like the others. The virgins Vicky and Ruby telling the jury they had been raped, the doctor telling the jury bullshi@! and the prosecutor passing out ceegars to the jury and telling them they have a chance to save the innocent and purity of the white woman as he dropped bullets on the floor in front of them. Powell, Roberson, Williams and Montgomery were sentenced to die in the electric chair. Wright case was different. Although the majority of the jury wanted to convict him, it had to be all or none. One lone juror held out and his case ended in a mistrial. Wright was 13 at the time. The nine boys were set to die one month after their convictions. The shortest time legally possible in the state of Alabama at the time.

They tried and convicted these nine boys in two and a half days. The story made national and international news headlines. Eventually more competent legal advisers were brought in on appeal and the nine boys, who were men by this time were eventually set free. Victoria Price, one of the accusers died in 1982 at the age of 77 years. Her cause of death in unknown. Probably gonorrhea, but we will never really know. As for Ruby Bates, who had married and taken her husband’s name of Schut, she died in Yakima, Washington, on October 27, 1976. She was 63 years. She probably died from gonorrhea or maybe her husband did her. Her character according to some was suspect. As with Vicky we will never know.

The Scottsboro Boys spent many years in jails before their convictions were successfully appealed. Their case was appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. This case showed the United States and the world the depth of Southern predjuice and racist inequity of Jim Crow in the southern legal system. But what of the nine men.. what happened to them?

In this May 1, 1935 file photo, attorney Samuel Leibowitz, second left, meets with seven of the Scottsboro defendants at the jail in Scottsboro, Ala. just after he asked the governor to pardon the nine youths held in the case. From left are Deputy Sheriff Charles McComb, Leibowitz, and defendants, Roy Wright, Olen Montgomery, Ozie Powell, Willie Robertson, Eugene Williams, Charlie Weems, and Andy Wright. The black youths were charged with an attack on two white women on March 25, 1931.

• Haywood Patterson, age 18. Patterson was tried and convicted four times, more than any other defendant. His second trial was held in 1933 in Decatur and presided over by Limestone County’s Judge James Horton in one of the more famous trials of the case because Horton overturned the all-white jury’s guilty verdict. Patterson escaped prison twice, including once in 1947 after which was arrested in Detroit after a bar fight ended in a man’s death. Patterson died in a Detroit prison in 1952 at the age of 39.
• Clarence Norris, age 19. Norris was paroled in 1944 and fled the state in violation of parole, only to be returned to prison when he came back to Alabama to help the remaining two Scottsboro Boys defendants. He was paroled again in 1946 and assumed his brother’s identity. He was pardoned in 1976 and died of Alzheimer’s disease in 1989 at the age of 76.
• Andy Wright, age 19. Wright was traveling with his younger brother, Roy, on the train that day. He was paroled in 1943 and, like Norris, fled North against his parole conditions. He, too, was lured back to Alabama with promises of leniency but was put back in prison until 1950.
• Roy Wright, age 13. He was paroled in 1937 and, for a while, he joined a speaking tour with other Scottsboro Boys organized by the Scottsboro Defense Committee. After his release, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson paid for Roy to attend vocational school. He later served in the Army, joined the merchant marine, and married. In 1959, Roy returned home from a tour of duty and found his wife with another man. He killed her and then shot and killed himself.
• Ozzie Powell, age 15. Powell was shot in the head by a guard in 1937 after he stabbed the officer during a prison transfer. He survived. He was paroled in 1946 and went to live in his native Georgia.
• Willie Roberson, age 16. Roberson had an IQ of only 64. He was headed to Memphis to be treated for gonorrhea and syphilis when he was rounded up with the other black men on the train that day. He was not treated for his sexually transmitted disease while in prison until 1933. He was paroled in 1937. His date and place of death are unknown.
• Charles Weems, age 20. Weems was on his way to see his family in Tennessee in 1931. He was paroled in 1943 and later married and took a job at a laundry in Atlanta.
• Eugene Williams, age 13. He was paroled in 1937. After his release and a brief entertainment career, Williams moved to St. Louis where he had relatives who helped him adjust to a relatively stable life.
• Olen Montgomery, age 17. When he was arrested, his glasses were broken and he did not receive another pair in jail for two years. He was paroled in 1937 and attempted to have a career in vaudeville. When that failed, he lived out his days in New York or Atlanta, drinking heavily.

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