A tragic event that occurred in the spring of 1931 when nine young black men were pulled off an Alabama freight train and accused of raping two young white women.
A fight had broken out between blacks and whites in which, the whites were thrown off the train; the surprise was that two southern women Victoria Price and Ruby Bates were also on the train, they had also been down to Chattanooga to look for work.
Rather than be arrested and put in jail they cried rape.
The nine young men called “the Scottsboro boys”, were quickly tried and sentenced to the electric chair.
News of their convictions spread, forcing an appeal to the United States Supreme Court.
New York attorney Sam Leibowitz traveled to Alabama in 1933 during segregation to defend the nine black men—setting in motion a legal battle that ultimately changed the lives of everyone involved.
When Sam Leibowitz lost his case Judge James Edwin Horton overturned the decision of the jury which resulted in the ruination of his career; he was never elected to the bench again-ever.
He never regretted his decision.