Scottsboro by Ellen Feldman

Scottsboro by Ellen Feldman 

Review by Jem11 

In 1931, near the town of Scottsboro Alabama, a posse of white men seized a vagrant group of African American boys from a goods train. Accused of raping two white girls they were speedily tried, convicted and condemned to die in the electric chair. There the matter would have ended (as it often did in those times and even in later decades) except their case was taken up by a group of activists. Ellen Feldman re-imagines this tragic episode in US history, providing a dramatic depiction of virulent racism, sexual exploitation and class inequality amidst the desperation and squalor of depression-era poverty.