.
It all started on March 25, 1931. Nine young black men were riding the rails in search of a shorter breadline, a warmer place to sleep, and hopefully a days' work. Five white boys provoked four black boys, Haywood Patterson, Andy Wright, Roy Wright, and Eugene Williams to fight. Five other black boys came to the aide of Patterson, Williams, and the Wright brothers and they were successful in throwing all but one of white boys off the tank car. The train stopped every hour, so the boys thought nothing when the train came to a stop at Paint Rock, Alabama. At the station dozens of white men, armed with pistols, rifles, and shotguns stormed the train. They took Patterson, his friends, and five other black boys and tied them together and drove them to the Scottsboro jail in Scottsboro, Alabama on a flatbed truck. They were jail for several hours utterly confused as to why they were contained. Finally, the guards came and took them from their cell and lined them up in front of two women. The guards asked the women to point out which boys had "had them" and one woman, Victoria Price, pointed at six of them. The other woman, Ruby Bates, did not say anything. The guard said, "If those six had Miss Price it stands reason that the others had Miss Bates." (pg 5) At this moment the boys realized they had been accused of rape. The boys insisted that they did not know the women and had not seen them on the train. Clarence Norris, one of the black boys called the women liars and one of the guards jabbed him with a bayonet, cutting his hand to the bone. "Nigger", the guard hollered, "you know damn well how to talk about white women." (pg 5) Two months later after the incident the nine boys, Haywood Patterson, Andy Wright, Roy Wright, Eugene Williams, Clarence Norris, Olen Montgomery, Willie Roberson, Ozie Powell, and Charlie Weems were sitting on death row in Kilby Prison in Montgomery, Alabama for a crime they did not commit.
