Browse Items (17 total)

Signed by "Committee of Five" workers from Harlem, this telegram requests protection for Eugene Williams and Roy Wright from "lynch mobs gathering near Decatur, Alabama" before their June 22 trial in Juvenile Court, as well as the immediate release…

Signed by "Joseph Walcott," this telegram from the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, protests the slated execution of the Scottsboro Boys. This group was a Canadian branch of Marcus Garvey's UNIA, the black…

Five thousand Westside Negro workers in Chicago demand change of venue, protection, and immediate release after the March 133 Decatur trial. The resolution also contains demands including protection for Negro families from labor agents, relief for…

Viola Montgomery—the mother of one of the Scottsboro Boys, Olen Montgomery—writes to Governor Miller to plead with him for a retrial for her son. She has prayed to God, raised money, and does not know what else to do in order to prevent her son's…

The Delta Sigma Theta sorority of Ardwick, Maryland, asks Governor Miller to free the Scottsboro Boys at once and to do away with lynch law. The group asks him to uphold justice, as the eyes of the world are on Alabama.

The Interracial Commission of Denver, Colorado, asks Governor Miller to do everything that he can to protect the Scottsboro Boys. The group aims to stand against racial injustice.

The St. Louis Association of Colored Women ask Governor Miller to move the Scottsboro Boys' trial to Birmingham.

Tuskegee Institute president Robert R. Moton writes to the Governor of Alabama on the school's letterhead, applauding the orderly punishment of crime, but stating that he hopes the courts will be equally just with African Americans as with whites.

The Phyllis Wheatley Club asks why rape is punishable by death in Alabama and why the state disregards constitutional law by refusing to allow African Americans to serve on juries. The club asks about other specifics of the case and urges Governor…

Signed by "Dr. George G. Mehlen" and representing 1,161 members, this letter from the Negro Businessmen's League (NBL) of Corona, New York, protests the 1933 verdicts from Judge Callahan's court and declares the Scottsboro defendants' innocence. It…