Scottsboro: A Tragedy of the American South

by Dan T. Carter

Overview

Scottsboro tells the riveting story of one of this country's most famous and controversial court cases and a tragic and revealing chapter in the history of the American South. In 1931, two white girls claimed they were savagely raped by nine young black men aboard a freight train moving across northeastern Alabama. The young men-ranging in age from twelve to nineteen-were quickly tried, and eight were sentenced to death. The age of the defendants, the stunning rapidity of their trials, and the harsh sentences they received sparked waves of protest and attracted national attention during the 1930s. Originally published in 1970,Scottsboro triggered a new interest in the case, sparking two film documentaries, several Hollywood docudramas, two autobiographies, and numerous popular and scholarly articles on the case. In his new introduction, Dan T. Carter looks back more than thirty-five years after he first wrote about the case, asking what we have learned that is new about it and what relevance the story of Scottsboro still has in the twenty-first century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807144947
Publisher:	Louisiana State University Press
Publication date:	09/01/2007
Series:	Jules and Frances Landry Award
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	528
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Dan T. Carter is Educational Foundation Professor at the University of South Carolina. He is the author of The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservativism, and the Transformation of American Politics; When the War Was Over: The Failure of Self-Reconstruction in the South, 1865--1867; and many other books. The 1970 publication of his award-winning Scottsboro: A Tragedy of the American South inspired a 1976 docudrama that rekindled controversy and interest in the case.