Why Is The Willie Francis Trial Important

Stories of the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin were seen and heard on nearly every news outlet and radio station beginning in February of 2012. On the night of February 26th, 2012 Trayvon Martin, an African-American teenager was walking home from a 7/11 convenience store carrying a small bag containing an Arizona iced tea beverage and a bag of skittles. On his way home, Martin was gunned downed in the streets of a gated community in the state of Florida by 28-year-old white resident George Zimmerman. While Martin was unarmed and had no criminal intent in mind, Zimmerman claimed to fear for his safety. This led to Zimmerman shooting Martin several times, which Martin shortly after died from.

The book I read was, “The Blood of Emmett Till” by Timothy B. Tyson. This book is about a 14 year-old boy named Emmett who went to Mississippi to spend time with his family, but ended up making a mistake that cost him his life. I’m going to talk about one big idea I found in the book, which also relates to, “Night” by Elie Wiesel. The big idea I found was that too much power and the fear of losing power can corrupt the mind.

Through the 1940s-1960s Decatur, Mississippi regularly had new about African Americans being murdered, lynched, hung, or beaten. Usually for showing interest in a white woman, talking back to white men, or even simple things like not giving up your bus seat or voting. So the case of Medgar Evers wasn’t very surprising to the majority of the community except the black community. This also didn’t bring much of a surprise to the state government. Byron DeLa Beckwith wasn’t convicted on his first two trials even though there was enough evidence against him.

The Scottsboro Trials The Scottsboro Trials were a short time period of great racial inequality. It all started with a train fight between nine black boys and a group of white men. According to Anderson, their train was stopped, and as the black boys departed from the train, they were accused of rape by two white women prostitutes. The boys were sent to jail, and the day-long trial began.

Eventually there was a black man on the jury, but only one, and after Ruby Bates gave her statement about making up the rape accusation, the verdict was still guilty. That one man, that one African American changed the future for black all across the South, he may not know it but he did, not only the future but the present. That one man, made a difference in our justice system, he helped shape our future generations; By him being on that jury made him a man of bravery and courage, a man that stood up against those who prejudice, and a man that proved that whites and black

When the main character, Grant, finds out that another African-American man named Jefferson will be executed, he is in shock. This shock results from the fact that the execution date, time, and location were all decided by the sheriff, and the family wasn 't consulted even once. He thinks to himself: “Twelve white men say a black man must die, and another white man sets the date and time without consulting another black person. Justice?” (129)

In the history of the United States of America, there have been many situations in which a trial was unfair, both in the cases of state and federal indictments. However, none of these have measured up to the outrageous inequity and negligence by the Alabama legal system in 1930. This poses the question: to what extent did the Scottsboro Trial reveal the faults of the U.S. Judicial System? Going so far to tie back to the Constitution, the Scottsboro Trial violated many rights of these boys, regardless of race; even the judges and prosecution put the system to shame. Aside from years of trial, falsely incriminating evidence, and biased courts, the Scottsboro boys faced years of judges, prosecutors, and mobs trespassing on their basic human rights.

A wise arthur once wrote in her book “ I think there 's only one kind folks, folks.” Meaning that all men are the same but, that 's not how people thought during the time of the scottsboro trials and even to this day. In the time of 1931 there were many whites that had a problem “playing nice” with the black residents of the United State. This caused multiple incidents to occur where blacks were punished and they did absolutely nothing wrong. The blacks could have been punished by being put in jail anywhere to being lynched or beaten to death.

”In our courts, when its a white man’s word against the black man’s the white man always wins” (pg.251-252). In this quote it also shows that even if the black man is innocent he will always be guilty due to the fact that he is of color. The trial with Tom is an accurate example of hoew people of color were treated back

As the colored side jumped up and started to get loud and behave wild like the animals they are. We were all still in shock over this verdict. I thought to myself how could they have failed us now the schools would be filled with negros that don’t deserve the education opportunity, but only are rewarded because of their skin colors. I came into the courtroom on April 3 and immediately went to the colored side where the negros sat.

In Chapter 1 of The Wilmington Ten, Janken wrote about how students from all-white high schools could have been dispersed into all-black high schools in Wilmington, North Carolina in order to help integrate the school system. Instead, only students from the all black high school were dispersed into two different all-white high schools because the community good was defined by what was acceptable to whites. This is relevant to the course theme of critically assessing the significance of events in North Carolina’s African American history because “white privilege” is very prominent in today’s time. For example, Americans of color are far more likely to be victims of law enforcement officers than white Americans. There has been a plethora of killings of African Americans by police

Emmett Till’s trial started an uproar in America over racial discrimination. It was not apparent to everyone that discrimination was such a big issue until the funeral of Emmett Till. His mother chose to have an open casket funeral, to show that something needed to be done about the brutal killing of her son. People were astonished about the murder. Resources used in this paper comes from the interviews that were taken from people on each side of this case, documents from the trial, and stories that were written by people who witnessed the event or participated in it.

The justice system has always been the heart of America. But like this country, it has many faults. Prejudice has played a major role in the shaping of this system. In the 1930’s the way a courtroom was set up was completely different from how it looks to day. In the book To Kill A MockingBird, Harper Lee shows just how different it is.

Injustice The Scottsboro Case shed light on the racial practices expressed in law that made a great impact on the legal system today. The actual victims of the Case did not receive a fair trial due to the color of their skin. The ones who played the victims planned the crime, and their stories made no sense. But like many of the trials during the time it wasn’t based on the actual evidence that was found,or even the defendants ' stories.

No medical evidence was ever collected or shown to prove that the crime ever took place. On the night after the assault, Mayella Ewell was never seen be a doctor. She was never examined to prove that Tom Robinson did anything to her. Mayella stated that she was beaten that night, so she should have gone to the doctor to get checked out. There is no proof of any crime, so there should not have been a guilty verdict.