The Scottsboro Trial In the Spring of 1931, eight young African American men and boys were hoboing a train to Memphis trying to find work in the Depression-torn South. On this ride, they were accused of raping two white women who were on the train. The young men - from age 13 on up - were put into jail in Scottsboro, Alabama to await trial. They were ultimately found guilty of rape and were sentenced to death. …
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…terms of how it affected racism in this country. The membership of the Ku Klux Klan, at a high in the 1920's, dipped drastically in the 1930's. Also, to some extent, capital punishment against African Americans was used less frequently than it had been in the past. Scottsboro and the ILD helped pave the road for the civil rights movement nearly three decades later and served as an inspiration for activists for generations to come.