Victoria Price And The Scottsboro Trials

Victoria Price and the Scottsboro Trials The Scottsboro case, a cause in modern American race relations, began when a brawl between whites and blacks took place while riding a freight train through northern Alabama in 1931 (Boyer). When Jackson County Officials stopped the train, two white women appeared from the freight train and accused nine black teens of raping them. One of those women was Victoria Price. Victoria Price was born on January 20, 1911. She grew up in the poor parts of Huntsville, Alabama. She had first gone into work as a spinner along side her mother t the age of ten.

When her mother suffered from an injury of some sort, Victoria began to make all the money for her family. She worked in cotton mills when work was available and when there wasn''t, she traveled along the railroads in search of work. She, however, was not the only person to do this, for many people were out of work during the Depression. Victoria eventually had to go into prostitution to earn more money since the cotton mills only hired for five or six days a month ("People and Events: vjctona price 1911-1982"). On April 3, Victoria Price was called to the stand to testify.

She recounted her Job- hunting trip to Chattanooga, the fght on the train between the white and the colored, and the rape in which Haywood Patterson was one of her attackers. She claimed that six raped her, and three raped Ruby Bates. Prosecutor Knight''s strategy was mainly to make sure his questions would keep to Victoria''s story, and so it did not change from her first story of the incident. When Samuel S. Leibowitz questioned her, however, it was merciless. His questions suggested his answers. Victoria had claimed that she tayed at Callie Brochie''s boardinghouse in Chattanooga the night before, but that was proved false.

There wasn''t such a place. Leibowitz proved that she was an adulterer who had consorted with Jack Tiller, a married man, in the Huntsville freight yards two days before the alleged rape. Dr. R. R. Bridges stated that the semen found in her was either Jack Tiller''s or Orville Gilleys. Leibowitz pointed out that she was not crying, bleeding, bruised, or even scratched after the incident she accused the boys of doing. He simply thought that she was in fear of being arrested for crossing state ines for immoral purposes when she met the posse in Paint Rock, so she and Ruby Bates made up the accusations of rape to not get caught.

Throughout Leibowitz''s cross-examination, Victoria remained sarcastic, evasive, and venomous. She tried to use her poor memory or memory loss to her advantage and was a difficult witness. Victoria tried to add a new dramatic elaboration by stating the things that her attackers said to her while raping her (Linder). Lawyers for International Labor Defense tried to bribe Victoria to change her testimony in 1934. Victoria simply told the police of their plot. At four trials in Scottsboro, one before Judge Horton, two more in 1933 before Judge Callahan, and four more in 1937, Victoria Price stuck to her story.

She refused to budge under cross- examination and each time the Jury found the defendants guilty ("People and Events: vtctona pnce 1911-1982"). Lester Carter was not as difficult as Victoria. He claimed that he had met Ruby, the two girls to Chattanooga, even though Victoria had denied knowing Lester till the day of the incident. Lester testified that he had sexual intercourse with Ruby Bates while Victoria had the same with Jack Tiller. He also said that he had Jumped off the train when fghting between the whites and blacks broke out on the trip from Huntsville to Chattanooga.

The big surprise witness was Ruby Bates. In the months before the trial, Ruby had disappeared, but as she came to the stand she claimed that a troubled conscious made her come forward and tell the truth. Ruby testified that there was no rape. She said none of the defendants touched her or even spoke to her. The accusation was false, and was made by Victoria to avoid charges against them. In the end after 1937, four of the defendants were in prison for rape: Charles Weems, Ozie Powell, Clarence Norris, and Andy Wright.

Haywood Patterson was in prison for assault. The other four boys, Olen Montgomery, Willie Roberson, Eugene Williams, and Roy Wright, were free to go when the charges were dropped. Either through paroles or escapes, all of the Scottsboro boys found their way out of Alabama. Charles Weems was paroled in 1943, Ozie Powell and Clarence Norris in 1946. Andy Wright was the last to leave Alabama in June, 1950. Haywood Patterson escaped in 1948. Once the charges were set for all the Scottsboro boys, Victoria Price seemed to ade into obscurity.

Dan Carter wrote in his 1969 history of the trial, Scottsboro, A Tragedy of the American South, that he believed she was dead. In 1976, however, Victoria Price resurfaced. She was known as Katherine Queen Victory Street. She was suing NBC for slander and invasion of privacy for the broadcast of Judge Horton and the Scottsboro Boys, a television movie. She had married twice more since World War II and was then living in Tennessee. She returned once more to the witness stand for her suit and told her story for the twelfth time in a court of law.

Her case was dismissed by the Judge in the end. She died in 1982 ("People and Events: Victoria price 1911-1982"). The Scottsboro boys and the trial is remembered to this day through the efforts of artists and scholars such as Harper Lee who wrote To Kill A Mockingbird. Leadbelly recorded a song, "Scottsboro Boys. " Dan T. Carter published his award-winning Scottsboro: A Tragedy of the American South in 1969. The movie that Victoria Price sued NBC for was show in 1976. The Scottsboro Trials and everyone who was involved will always be remembered one way or another.