On March 25, 1931 two dozen hobos, both black and white, hopped on a train in Chattanooga Tennessee. The white men claimed that it was a white man's train and that all the blacks had to get off. When they refused to get off, a fight broke out between the white men and the black men. The black men won the fight and succeeded in throwing the white men off the train. Angered about their defeat, the white men reported the blacks to authorities and when the train stopped in Paint Rock, Alabama authorities arrested the nine black men. Soon after, two women emerged from the train and one claimed that she had been raped by these black men. Astonished with this news, authorities tied up these nine young men and sent them to the nearby town of Scottsboro. What soon followed would become known as the famous Scottsboro trial.
The main reason that these two women, Ruby Bates and Victoria Price, claimed that they were raped was to obscure the fact that they were hobos as well as to avoid getting arrested. As I listened to the video more carefully and I understood more about the lives Victoria Price and Ruby Bates led, I could not help but feel empathy for them. This came as a surprise to me because they were the last people in this entire case that I would expect to feel empathy for. But I honestly understood why they would accuse these black men of rape. Both Victoria and Ruby worked long hours in mills and were so poor that they were forced to live in the slums of black neighborhoods. They resorted in becoming prostitutes as a means of survival. When they were caught on the train with the nine black men, they found an opportunity that could for once make them feel superior and "more white.".
As the nine black men awaited a trial in Kilby Prison, the Communist party was rising and gaining support by blacks all around the world. The Communist party supported the Scottsboro nine as a means for southern lynch justice.
