STORIES OF SCOTTSBORO

Rating:
Summary: Ok, but not as convincing as others.
Review: Having already read Dan T. Carter's masterful Scottsboro: A Tragedy of the American South, I already knew the story of the Scottsboro boys and the miscarriage of justice that happened to them. I hoped to get more insight with this book. Unfortunately, its unclear style got in the way. I would guess that someone who was unaware of this case might love this book--but if you are looking for more than narrative, get Carter's book instead.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing book!!
Review: I started reading this book with very little knowledge about the Scottsboro incident. This book does an amazing job of portraying the different sides to this tragic story. The chapters are short enough for those of us with short attention spans. However, each chapter grips you with why those particular people feel and think the way they do.
A must read if you want to know what really happened, and more importantly why it happened.

Rating:
Summary: Masterful writing, excellent research
Review: James Goodman is a consumate historian and storyteller. Stories of Scottsboro almost reinvents historical writing. Shifting perspectives give a full picture of these important events in America's racial history, and Goodman's unique literary style grips the reader and will not let go. Solid, reliable history that reads like a dream.

Rating:
Summary: A forgotten embarassment
Review: One of the more controversial events of the 1930's took place near Paint Rock, Alabama when nine Negro youths were arrested for the rape of two white women on a freight train. The nine were quickly tried and found guilty. Before the death penalty could be administered, appeals were filed with the aid of the US Communist Party. Thence ensued a lengthy series of trials and appeals that lasted from 1931 until well into the forties. It was a legal battle between White and Black as well as North and South with the battlefield always under the control of the White Southerners. Today it is an incident lergely forgotten by succeeding generations. Yet it is an excellent example of the the state of race relations in the South (not that there are too many surprises there), the role of moderate judges in reconciling racial injustice, the influence of the Communist/Socialist Parties in the 1930's as well as a number of other splinter stories. Therein lies the excellence of this book.

The author attempts to relate the story of the "Scottsboro Boys" through various perspectives without really indicating a particular bias. As the story goes on these perspectives seem to roll into one but even that one perspective takes a middle road approach to the story. For example, we are told of all the difficulties that the main characters suffer while imprisoned. Simultaneously we are made to understand that these same characters have serious flaws of their own.

The book follows the story of all the principals from their entry into the story until their death. There were few successes to come out of this event and the author lets us see the failures of the "Scottsboro Boys" as they each eventually realized their freedom.

This is an extremely readable work of non-fiction. It may seem occasionally that the story is stuck at one particular point but it generally moves along, giving the reader a rare insight into a very American event in history.

Rating:
Summary: A forgotten embarassment
Review: One of the more controversial events of the 1930's took place near Paint Rock, Alabama when nine Negro youths were arrested for the rape of two white women on a freight train. The nine were quickly tried and found guilty. Before the death penalty could be administered, appeals were filed with the aid of the US Communist Party. Thence ensued a lengthy series of trials and appeals that lasted from 1931 until well into the forties. It was a legal battle between White and Black as well as North and South with the battlefield always under the control of the White Southerners. Today it is an incident lergely forgotten by succeeding generations. Yet it is an excellent example of the the state of race relations in the South (not that there are too many surprises there), the role of moderate judges in reconciling racial injustice, the influence of the Communist/Socialist Parties in the 1930's as well as a number of other splinter stories. Therein lies the excellence of this book.

The author attempts to relate the story of the "Scottsboro Boys" through various perspectives without really indicating a particular bias. As the story goes on these perspectives seem to roll into one but even that one perspective takes a middle road approach to the story. For example, we are told of all the difficulties that the main characters suffer while imprisoned. Simultaneously we are made to understand that these same characters have serious flaws of their own.

The book follows the story of all the principals from their entry into the story until their death. There were few successes to come out of this event and the author lets us see the failures of the "Scottsboro Boys" as they each eventually realized their freedom.

This is an extremely readable work of non-fiction. It may seem occasionally that the story is stuck at one particular point but it generally moves along, giving the reader a rare insight into a very American event in history.

Rating:
Summary: Wow.
Review: This is far and away the best, most exhaustively researched and detailed study of the infamous Scottsboro Boys case of the 1930's. Goodman manages to incorporate a multitude of details in a style that is highly readable and engrossing, whether the reader be an historian or merely one interested in the tragedy of the case. Unlike other authors who have hastily attempted to take up this case in order to garner a quick buck, Goodman renders a well-annotated and authoritative account, one which approaches the boundaries of an epic. For, the case of the Scottsboro Boys extends well beyond the mendacious accusations and the cowardly jury verdicts attendant to the trials. The true tragedy of the tribulations of these young men is the aftermath. The horrible consequences of this episode in Alabama history is the sheer permanence of the seering brand of conviction that was only removed after the lives of each of the Scottsboro Boys had been irreparably destroyed. The decades of confinement at the old Kilby Prison in Montgomery, as well as other penal institutions, are frankly explored by Goodman, and the book asserts its superiority to all others on this subject due to Goodman's determination to take the reader through those decades, marked as they were by brutality, bitter frustration and abject hopelessness. This reviewer discovered only one error in Goodman's research, that concerning the relationship of the Carmichaels - an error of some substance, yet one which can easily be corrected and assimilated in future editions. And, it is the profound hope of this reviewer that such future editions will be forthcoming. Goodman has provided students of Alabama history, as well as those who study American jurisprudence, with a solid, definitive work which will serve to educate countless readers for many years to come. It is highly recommended.