Browse Items (63 total)

Warren P. Norton—the superintendent of public schools in Meadville, Pennsylvania—writes that although the communists of the International Labor Defense have control of the defense for the Scottsboro Boys, people should not keep from protesting…

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.

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…

W. E. Mohammed asks Governor Miller for the Scottsboro Boys' trial to be moved from Decatur to Birmingham. The letter speaks on behalf of ten thousand Muslims who want the Scottsboro Boys' release.

Mrs. L. Miller writes to Governer Miller that the problem with the courts is that they take too long to carry out a sentence. She believes that the Scottsboro Boys, or anyone accused of rape, should be punished, and that the Northern states should…

A. E. Merriam writes to Governor Miller that his purpose is to bring to light the undeserved hatred of "Negro People South of the Mason and Dixon's line," and details some of the atrocities committed against African Americans in the South since…

Writing from Amsterdam, G. Mannoury argues that certainty is a matter of probability, such that to convict the Scottsboro Boys would be a "judicial error" and "philosophical absurdity."

Chas. E. Lotreck writes that he had a trip planned to visit his friends in Montgomery, but will be cancelling it since he has learned that the roads were built by chain gangs. He continues that he will not give any money to a state so barbarous.

Eloise Lawrence, a student of criminology, writes to the Governor that she hopes some of the funding for institutions of punishment could be better used for education in matters of "social intelligence." She hopes that in the future the state will…

Edward S. King writes to inform Governor Miller that International Labor Defense lawyers, Allan Taub and Douglas McKenzie, had Communist affiliations.