Elena, you don’t understand my agenda because you don’t even know me…I am NOT a feminist and nor have I ever subscribed to being one…that’s your first problem…2nd, the convo was about Oprah’s injecting a black woman who was raped by 6 racist white men…however, if I were to bring up Black on White rape, I’d have to start with the Scottsboro Boys, who were wrongly/purposely accused by a white woman.
The Scottsboro Boys were nine African American teenagers, ages 13 to 19, accused in Alabama of raping two White American women on a train in 1931. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident dealt with racism and the right to a fair trial. The cases included a lynch mob before the suspects had been indicted, all-white juries, rushed trials, and disruptive mobs. It is commonly cited as an example of a miscarriage of justicein the United States legal system.
On March 25, 1931, the Southern Railway line between Chattanooga and Memphis, Tennessee, had nine black youths who were hoboing on a freight train with several white males and two white women.[7][8][9] A fight broke out between the white and black groups near the Lookout Mountain tunnel, and the whites were kicked off the train. The whites went to a sheriff in the nearby town Paint Rock, Alabama, and claimed that they were assaulted by the blacks on the train. The sheriff gathered a posse and gave orders to search for and “capture every Negro on the train.”[10] The posse arrested all black passengers on the train for assault.[11]
The unfortunate black teenagers were: Haywood Patterson (age 18) who claimed that he had ridden freight trains for so long that he could light a cigarette on the top of a moving train; Clarence Norris (age 19), who had left behind ten brothers and sisters in rural Georgia; Charlie Weems (age 19); brothers Andy Wright (age 19) and Roy Wright (age 12), who were leaving home for the first time. The nearly blind Olin Montgomery(age 17), who was hoping to get a job in order to pay for a pair of glasses that he so desperately needed; Ozie Powell (age 16); Willie Roberson (age 16), who suffered from such severe syphilis that he could barely walk; and Eugene Williams (age 13);[7] Of these nine boys, only four knew each other prior to their arrest.
Two white women who were also aboard the train, Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, told a member of the posse that they had been raped by a group of black teenagers.[12] The posse brought the women to the jail where the accused were being held, and they identified them as their attackers. A doctor was summoned to examine Price and Bates for signs of rape, but none was found. A widely published photo showed the two women shortly after the arrests in 1931.[citation needed]
There was no evidence (beyond the women’s testimony) pointing to the guilt of the accused, yet that was irrelevant due to the prevalent racism in the South at the time, according to which black men were constantly being policed by white men for signs of sexual interest in white women, which could be punishable by lynching. Price and Bates may have told the police that they were raped to divert police attention from themselves. They were both suspected of being prostitutes and not only risked being arrested for it, but they could also have been prosecuted for violating the Mann Act by crossing a state line “for immoral purposes.”
Yes, let’s talk about Black on White rape and the centuries of white women who have accused black men of rape to cover their asses from some form of prosecution, a racist boyfriend, husband or father (family member)…so, be on the lookout, my next blog will be just that and dedicated to Y.O.U.!!!
