A Landmark Case of Racial Injustice

[Ms. Wonderful]

SCOTTSBORO, Ala. -- For most of the last 73 years, almost nobody here has talked about it. It's been the subject of books, a TV movie and a documentary. But only when locals leave the foothills of northeast Alabama -- for Birmingham, Atlanta, another country -- and mention where they're from do they get lured into conversations about the "Scottsboro Boys."

"My parents didn't talk about it. I just sort of heard about it," said Anita Cornelison, 40, a Scottsboro native who runs Great Finds Antiques on the town square. "I don't even know when it was, really.

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Added Dan Carter, author of "Scottsboro: A Tragedy of the American South": "It was the story of the decade, and then 25 years later it was gone. That tells you something about selective memory. . . . When you consider there's still considerable opposition there to even talking about it, I think it's a good choice to confront it."

While all the principles are indeed dead -- the nine youths, the two women, the lawyers, the doctor who later admitted falsely testifying he had found evidence of rape -- some people here still remember that March afternoon 73 years ago and the frenzy that followed.

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http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/0104/24scottsboro.html