Montgomery bought a saxophone, then a guitar, and practiced as much as possible. Most of the job opportunities that came his way-- dishwasher, porter, laborer-- Montgomery despised, believing they just were getting in the way of his musical calling. Montgomery bounced back and forth between New York City and Georgia, drinking heavily, and rarely holding a job for more than a few months.
Sometime after , Montgomery settled for good in Georgia. Eugene Williams was thirteen when arrested along with his friends the Wright brothers and Haywood Patterson in March, Prior to boarding the Southern Railroad freight, Williams had worked as a dishwasher in a Chattanooga cafe. At trial, Williams admitted that he fought with white boys on the train, but denied having seen Price or Bates until after his arrest. In prison, Williams said that "getting out is the main thing I think about.
The state dropped charges against Williams in July, , citing his youth at the time of the alleged incident. After his release he told Samuel Liebowitz that he hoped to land a job someday in a jazz orchestra.
He moved to St. Louis where he had relatives, and where his sponsors hoped that he would enroll in a Baptist seminary. When Willie Roberson, age seventeen, allegedly raped Ruby Bates aboard the Chattanooga to Memphis freight we was suffering from a serious case of syphillis, with sores all over his genitals, that would have made intercourse very painful. Moreover, Roberson was unable to walk without a cane, and clearly was in in no condition to leap from railroad car to railroad car, as his accusers alleged.
Nonetheless, on the strength of Price's and Bate's allegations Roberson was prosecuted and convicted. Price testified that Roberson held her legs apart while other boys yelled "pour it to her. In fact, Roberson was no where near the scene of the alleged rape, but alone in a boxcar near the caboose. He had left his job as a hotel busboy in Georgia to go to Chattanooga in search of better work.
Finding none available, he boarded the freight for Memphis. Throughout the several trials in which he testified, Roberson stuck to his story. Finally, even prosecutors came to believe him, and Roberson was one of four Scottsboro Boys released in July, After his release, Roberson lived in New York City where he found steady work. Roberson's six years in jail were difficult.
Roberson suffered from asthma, and the lack of fresh air available aggravated his condition. He was diagnosed as were four other Scottsboro Boys with "prison neurosis. Roy Wright, twelve or thirteen when arrested, was the youngest of the Scottsboro Boys.
He was the brother of Andy Wright, who was also arrested upon disembarking the Chattanooga to Memphis freight on March 25, Wright was on his first trip away from his home in Chattanooga, where he worked in a grocery store.
His only trial ended in a mistrial when eleven jurors held out for death, even though, in view of his age, the prosecution had only asked for a life sentence.
At the first trials in Scottsboro, Wright testified that he saw other defendants rape the white girls. He later said that he did so after having been threatened and severely beaten by authorities. Wright kept a Bible with him at all times in jail, where he was held six years without retrial. He needed whatever comfort he could find. In a letter to his mother he wrote, "I am all lonely and thinking of you I feel like I can eat some of your cooking Mom.
Alabama dropped all charges against Wright in After his release, he told Samuel Leibowitz that wanted to be a lawyer or a teacher. After going on a national tour for the Scottsboro Defense Committee, Wright served in the army, got married, and took a job with the merchant marine. In , after returning from an extended stay at sea, Wright became convinced that his wife had been unfaithful.
Tried four times, Patterson was convicted and sentenced to death three times, before receiving a seventy-five year sentence from his fourth jury. Patterson, either awaiting trial or serving time, spent time in jails and prisons in Scottsboro, Decatur, Birmingham, Kilby the death house , and Atmore. Prison life in Alabama was never easy, but some times were especially tough. One night, the night originally set for his own execution, Patterson watched and listened from his own six-foot by nine-foot cell as another inmate was electrocuted in a nearby room at Kilby.
Of the experience Patterson said, "If I live to be , I'll never forget it. Atmore was filled with sadistic and even murderous guards, murderous inmates, rampant homosexual rape, and venemous snakes. Several times he was whipped. He was left without food for as long as a week at a time. He was kept in solitary confinement. He was surrounded by so many poisonous snakes that he was driven to tempting fate by draping them over his shoulders or putting them inside his shirt.
In February , he was stabbed twenty times, puncturing his lungs, by an inmate paid by a guard to kill him. Deprived of normal outlets for sex, Patterson became an aggressive homosexual "a wolf" with his own "gal-boy. Patterson held a variety of jobs in prison. He swept floors, worked rice and corn fields.
For some time he ran an unofficial general store out of his cell. At Kilby, Patterson was responsible for carrying dead inmates out of the execution chamber. Patterson managed two escapes. April-December: Shocked by the speedy trials, the extreme youth of the defendants, and the severity of the sentences, progressive national organizations take up the Scottsboro case and call for the country to reject the "Alabama frame-up.
June The executions of the defendants are stayed pending appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court. January 5: A letter from Ruby Bates to a boyfriend surfaces; in it, she denies having been raped. March The Alabama Supreme Court, voting , upholds the convictions of seven of the defendants, granting Eugene Williams a new trial because he was a juvenile at the time of his conviction. November 7: In Powell v. Alabama, the U. Supreme Court rules that the defendants were denied the right to counsel, which violated their right to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The cases are remanded to the lower court. He agrees. April 6: Ruby Bates appears as a surprise witness for the defense, denying that any rape occurred and testifying that she was with Victoria Price for the whole train ride. Her assertion that she and Price were with boyfriends the night before explains the presence of semen in their vaginas. On the stand, Dr. Bridges admits that the sperm found in his examination were non-motile, and indicates that Victoria Price showed few physical signs of having been forcibly raped by six men, as she claimed, but he refuses to say how old the semen could have been.
April Judge Horton sets the sentence of death for Patterson, and then suspends it on a motion for a new trial. Then, the judge postpones the trials of the other defendants because tensions in town are running too high to expect a "just and impartial verdict. November Seven of the defendants appear in Callahan's court. November-December: The trials of Patterson and Norris end in death sentences for both. Judge Callahan's bias might be exemplified by his omissions: he forgets to explain to Patterson's jury how to render a not guilty verdict Leibowitz reminds him before the jury goes out and neglects to ask the mercy of God upon Norris's soul.
June The Alabama Supreme Court unanimously denies the defense motion for new trials. Leibowitz had argued that qualified blacks were systematically kept off jury rolls, and the names that were currently in the rolls had been forged after the fact.
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