The small city of Scottsboro in northeastern Alabama is home to a museum commemorating one of the most significant events in US civil rights history. The Scottsboro Boys Museum, founded in 2010 by local activist Shelia Washington, tells the story of nine African American young men and boys who were falsely accused of rape in 1931 and subjected to multiple trials and convictions.
After an altercation on a freight train, the nine were arrested and faced a mob threatening lynching. Despite their innocence, eight were sentenced to death in trials lasting just four days. The case sparked protests and multiple Supreme Court appeals, with the men serving a combined 102 years in prison. It was a precursor to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s.
Washington faced opposition from a community that preferred to forget the episode. Historian Thomas Reidy, executive director of the museum, said the city feared being associated with the case's racial injustice. Washington persisted despite death threats and lack of funding, driven by a determination to have the men pardoned. Only one received a pardon before his death, but in 2013, the State of Alabama issued posthumous pardons for the other eight.
