Unfair treatment toward any being of life would be considered horrible and cruel. For the black population, being falsely accused of a crime became the trend of their demise and injustice. The paper will evaluate how racial discrimination and prejudice, stereotyping, and the protection of white womanhood and personal reputation are the types of racial and ethnic biases showcased in the film. The paper will also include information about why the white women were viewed as innocent people and not the boys under the circumstances, why the defense attorney’s religion provides significance, and why the results would’ve changed if the case was settled in the North.
The actions of racial discrimination and prejudice served a strong purpose in the film. When Hayward Patterson, one of the Scottsboro boys, encounters a white man on the freight train heading to Alabama, the white man says, “This is a white man’s train. All you ni**er bastards unload (PBS).” This provides an accusation against the Scottsboro boys as they tried to claim their innocence in the court room against the white women. While enduring the four trials placed upon them due to a false rape claim made by Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, newspapers deeming them as the “Nine Negro Brutes,” threats of mobs wishing to kill them, their appearance and actions in the jail cells, and the arrogance of their defense attorney, Samuel Leibowitz, showcases the obstacles these men had to endure to gain innocence (PBS). In comparison, Leibowitz endured small amounts of discrimination alongside them. Since Leibowitz was Jewish, “won fame and fortune by defending gangsters, kidnappers, rapists, corrupt cops, and jealous lovers,” and pulled off “an attack on Southern white womanhood” during his cross-examination of Price, southerner’s saw him as “the ultimate outsider (PBS).”
Racial stereotyping and the protection of white womanhood were other racial and ethnic biases shown in the film. Racial stereotyping was used against Patterson during and after the trials. Patterson was described as “someone who looked the closest you can imagine to a rapist as far as the white imagination is concerned,” and this southern image would follow Patterson throughout his life (PBS). He was “marked from the beginning as the most visible, the most hated of the Scottsboro defendants,” and this was m because of his public image and due to Price pointing at him, and saying, “He raped me” in the courtroom of the second trial (PBS). Racial stereotyping wasn’t the only device used against the Scottsboro boys and their allies, white womanhood was utilized to an extreme. Price and Bates worked in the cotton center of Huntsville and worked “in the poorest of the town’s textile mills,” and they would often trade sex with black or white men for food and clothing which was a “violation of the ideals of segregation (PBS).” However, as historian, James Goodman said, “but the second they accuse a black man of rape at least for an instance they became a pure white woman,” provides a shield against their crimes (PBS). Though for women like Rose Shapiro who received the spit of a farmer across her face for being part Jewish, this amount of respect was not shown to her because of her reputation and religion.
The controversial type of racial or ethnic bias shown in the film was the protection of one’s reputation. Most of the affiliates, who were for or against the Scottsboro boys’ innocence seemed to have an ulterior motive for their position. The communist party who represented the North, wanted to use “the Scottsboro case to expose what was going on in the South,” since they viewed the south to have an “uncompleted revolution (PBS).” Though the communist party sent Leibowitz to defend the boys in court, this was mainly an attempt to expose the debts, tyranny, and southern black system. Although Leibowitz showcases a strong desire to help the Scottsboro boys obtain freedom for their rape crime, he wanted “to make a name for himself, and he had no idea what it was like going into a different country (PBS).” When Bates answered “The communists” to all of Thomas Knights questions concerning personal belongings, it not only was used to gain the southern whites’ support, but could be viewed as an act of protecting one’s reputation (PBS). Judge Horton’s decision to give the black men another trial after finding out the truth about Price’s lies was an act of letting go of one’s personal reputation, because he “was a man of the South, and more than 800 letters arrived at Horton’s home,” praising him for his verdict, and if he chose wrong, the result would destroy him politically (PBS).
When looking at the circumstances the Scottsboro boys endured in the South, there was no hope for them to claim their innocence. At the start of the film, Goodman says, “In Paint Rock news goes out that there is gang of blacks, a gang of Negroes that beat up a gang of whites” and this gang of blacks were the Scottsboro boys who were triggered by the white man’s claim to get off the train (PBS). Their actions against these men could’ve started the root of hatred the white southerners felt toward them, before they’re convicted of rape. Their three defense attorneys were unable to save all of them. Leibowitz’ attacks against Price made one southerner “feel like reaching for his gun,” which supports the outcome reason for the verdict (PBS). Though their mothers’ idea of holding protests and rallies in the North steered up publicity for their sons’ case, as Historian Wayne Flynt said, “this national reaction works against the Scottsboro boys. Not to back Alabamians off but to harden and toughen the resistance to any kind of fair trial,” which leads to the boys being sent back to Kilby’s death house (PBS). In the death house, they turned on one another, and one of the boys even “slashed the throat of a Sheriff’s Deputy with a homemade knife,” and most of them led the lives of criminals’ years after the case was solved (PBS). Flynt begged the question, “who really cared for them, who really defended them,” and this supports the evitable conclusion (PBS).
When considering the white southerners’ protection of white womanhood, the reason why the women received wonderful treatment seems clear. The lives of Bates and Price were in “complete violation of the ideals of segregation,” but since they accused a black man of raping them, their previous crime drifted away (PBS). When historian, Robin Kelley said, “The five thousand people who were lynched from 1880 to 1940, most of those were cases of black men accused of raping or sexually assaulting a white woman,” while sharing how white women were an integral piece of southern culture, shows how they already claimed victory (PBS). Though Leibowitz believed each credible accusation against Price strengthened his case, it weakened his case since the audience “saw it as an attack on Southern womanhood (PBS).” When Goodman narrates the moment when Knight asks Bates peculiar questions about how she got specific belongings and how she traveled from New York to Alabama, while ending with her response of the communists, Robert Leibowitz, son of Samuel Leibowitz says, “The only reason why she’s doing this is because she’s been bought and paid for,” which represents the thought most southern whites had at the time (PBS).
The reason why the defense attorney’s religion was significant for this court case was because it showcased how unfamiliar Leibowitz was of the southerner’s culture and ways. Remember, Leibowitz took on the case to make a name for himself, and “had no idea what it was like going into a different country” and like Flynt said, “The minute a Jewish lawyer from New York came to Alabama the case was lost (PBS).” He dealt damage to the southern culture and “stirred deep memories among southerners of humiliation suffered at the hands of the North (PBS).” When Wade Wright, one of Knight’s co-prosecutor, says “Show them that Alabama justice can’t be bought and sold with Jew money from New York,” Leibowitz tries to object, and gets overruled by the judge (PBS). His comment toward Price about “It is the foul, contemptible lie of an abandoned, brazen woman,” could have planted the final nail in the coffin for Leibowitz (PBS). The southerners’ saw a man, “totally foreign to their religion,” and “someone who was defending black rapists, someone totally contrary to their racial values,” highlights why the true significance of his religion was how it was used discriminately against him (PBS).
The results of the trial could have changed if the case had been held in the North. In the film, it suggests the southerners carried “deep memories of humiliation suffered at the hands of the North,” after Leibowitz’ attacks on Price are shared in the courtroom (PBS). In contrast to the South, the North’s “scalawags and carpetbaggers marched into the south and said: The Negro is your equal and you will accept him as such” highlights the loss of equality in the South (PBS). The communist party, who aired from the North, were devoted to helping southern blacks and fought for “every demand and need of the Negroes in the terror and lynch-ridden South (PBS).” The reason the Scottsboro boys received help from Leibowitz was because “The world knew about this case because of the way the communists spread the word,” thereby, giving Leibowitz a chance to make a name for himself (PBS). Though the second trial of the Scottsboro boys case ends with their defeat, it helped forge a movement in the south, where “whites and blacks marched side by side for the first time since the days of abolition (PBS).” Though they do obtain a third trial, with a judge who over rules all Leibowitz’ claims, it’s impressive to see the amount of effort the mobs in the north went to, to help the boys obtain a third shot at claiming their innocence. The film doesn’t specify what black life was like in the northern areas, but after receiving information about the southerner’s views and culture, it’s safe to say the results would have changed in a northern courtroom.