American Experience: Scottsboro: An American Tragedy

In March 1931, two white women stepped off a box car in Paint Rock, Alabama, with a shocking accusation of gang rape, by nine black teenagers on the train. So began the Scottsboro case, one of the 20th century's fieriest legal battles. The youths' trial generated the sharpest regional conflict since the Civil War, led to momentous Supreme Court decisions, and helped give birth to the civil rights movement.