Excerpt from "Scottsboro Case Goes to the Jury"

Reprinted from the New York Times

Published on January 23, 1936

"It takes courage to do the right thing in the face of public clamor for the wrong thing, but when justice is not administered fairly, . . . there is no protection for any one, man or woman, black or white." These words were spoken in January 1936 by defense attorney C. L. Watts at the fourth trial of Haywood Patterson, one of nine young black men known as the Scottsboro Boys, accused of raping two white women. The words struck at the heart of a criminal justice system heavily biased against black Americans. Watts urged the all white jury "to do the right thing" in spite of heavy public pressure for a guilty decision. The "right thing" in Watts's thinking was to deliver a not-guilty verdict.