Imagine being a black teenager in the South in the middle of the Great Depression. It was hard enough for whites to find work in those days; I can't even imagine what it would be like to be black looking for a job. Many blacks considered vagabonding a common pastime, viewing it as an adventure to move them from one small job to another. And that’s where the story of the Scottsboro Boys begins. On board a Southern railroad car was a young black boy named Haywood Patterson. He held on to the side of the car as it moved back and forth on the rusty tracks. On the roof of the car walked a young white man. Every time this man walked past Patterson, he stepped on his fingers. Patterson finally told the man, "Any time you need to pass, tell me and I'll move my hand." The young man thought it was unnecessary to ask someone to move their hand, especially a Negro. This outraged him and he began shouting obscenities and racial slurs at Patterson. Shortly after, a stone-throwing fight broke out between the white tramps and the black tramps who were boarding the train. All but one of the white youths were forced off the train by the rocks. This young white guy named Orville Gilley was retired. The train itself was speeding up and Gilley could have been killed. A local station master was informed of the "attack" by white vagrants who had been thrown from the train. This station master telegraphed the next station master to inform him of the situation. As the train slowed and stopped in Paint Rock, Alabama, those charged with the future crime had no idea what they would face. Once in Paint Rock, 9 black youths were arrested, tied together and taken to jail in Scottsboro Al. Here the boys were placed in a jail cell to await their charges. They didn't know that additional fees were going to be added, which never crossed their minds. At Paint Rock, two young women welcomed the group who had come to gather the men from the train. One of these women (Victoria Price) told the group that she had been raped by a gang of 12 black men armed with guns and knives (Linder, n.d.). They were escorted to the prison so Victoria could point out her attackers. Here she claimed that 6 of the 9 men raped her. Middle of paper, young people found their way out of Alabama (Linder, nd). Andy Wright was the last to leave Alabama in 1950. Some of the boys wrote books about their experiences. The case showed how indifferent juries were in the South in the 1930s, how two women could ruin the lives of 9 men, and how politically involved everyone was in the trial. The Scottsboro Trials were the single case in U.S. history that resulted in the greatest number of trials, convictions, mistrials, and retrials. Ultimately, this case allowed juries to be open to blacks and helped ease racial tensions in both the South and the North. Reference List Goodman, J. (1994). Scottsboro Stories; The rape case that shocked America in the 1930s and reignited the fight for equality. New York, NY: Pantheon Books. Norris, C. and Washington, C.D. (1979). The Last of the Scottsboro Boys, an autobiography. Toronto, Canada: Putnam Books. Linder, D.O. (n.d.). The Scottsboro Boys Trials. Retrieved March 14, 2005, from http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/scottsboro/SB_acct.htmlPBS. (1999-2000). Scottsboro Timeline. Retrieved March 27, 2005, from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/scottsboro/timeline/index.html