On April 4, the Alabama House of Representatives vot­ed 103 – 0 in favor of a bill to posthu­mous­ly par­don the ​“Scottsboro Boys,” nine black teenagers who were wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed of the rape of two white women in 1931. The bill passed the Senate by a vote of 29 – 0, and Gov. Robert Bentley has indi­cat­ed he will sign it. All but one of the group were sen­tenced to death by all-white juries with vir­tu­al­ly no legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion. The mil­i­tary had to pro­tect them from angry mobs. They lin­gered on death row for years. Eventually, after sev­er­al argu­ments in the U.S. Supreme Court on the right to coun­sel and prop­er selec­tion of juries, all of them were freed with­out exe­cu­tion. Through the years of appeals, one of the women who accused the group of rape recant­ed and said the claim was a lie. Sen. Arthur Orr, a Republican spon­sor of the bill, said, ​“Their lives were ruined by the con­vic­tions. By doing this, it sends a very pos­i­tive mes­sage nation­al­ly and inter­na­tion­al­ly that this is a dif­fer­ent state than we were many years ago.” The last of the group of defen­dants died in 1989. (pho­to: Brown Brothers, Sterling, PA).

(B. Johnson & J. Washington, ​“Ala. Lawmakers Vote to Pardon the Scottsboro Boys,” Associated Press, April 4, 2013). See Clemency, Innocence, and Race.

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