Scottsboro is fact based fiction. It tells the story of the nine Scottsboro boys – nine young black men who were wrongfully convicted several times over, of raping two young women on a train in the American south in 1931. The colour of their skin ensured their guilty verdict, even when one of the girls retracted her statement and admitted that they had both lied about the rape.
The main narrator of the book is a (fictional) journalist named Alice Whittier, who covers the trial and tries to help in seeking justice for the boys. Parts are also narrated by Ruby Bates, the girl who admitted that she and her accomplice Victoria Price, had lied about being raped.
I think it is a skilful piece of writing, expertly blending fact and fiction. It will make you outraged at the absolutely blatant racism against the young men, (and also at the blatant sexism against the women in the story). It’s very eloquently written and I found it easy to lose myself in the pages, and hard to put the book down at times. However, while I could certainly see the usefulness of Alice as a character – her job entitles her to sit in the court while the trials were taking place, and to get to know Ruby and the nine Scottsboro boys – I did feel that unnecessary details about Alice’s personal life intruded somewhat. Of course people want a well rounded character, but certain events which she wrote about, just stalled the narrative.
However, anyone who is interested in civil rights and how they can be denied based solely on the colour of one’s skin (and this is not something that should come as a surprise to anyone) could do worse than read this book. I would recommend.
Between the Pages 