Viewing page 79 of 100

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

BOOK REVIEW          PATTERSON

violence if the righteous demands of black Americans to enjoy their rights and human dignity continue to be met with the terror of the armed forces of those in political power.

a political frameup

Scottsboro was not, as the learned professor would have his read-ers believe "one of the country's most famous and controversial court cases."  It was not a court case at all though fought out in courtrooms.  It was a political frameup, a conspiracy of government against the Constitution, black citizenry and as well, white.  It ex-ceeded in its program of terror and murderous viciousness the cases of Mooney and Billings, Heywood and Moyer, Sacco and Vanzetti and the most infamous legal murder of all, that of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.
  In his preface, Carter asserts that: "From the beginning the Scottsboro Case seemed destined to become a 'cause celebre.'"
  How could that be?  Who determined to make it such?  Certainly not the state of Alabama.  From the beginning the Scottsboro Case was destined to be the graveyard of nine innocent boys murdered legally, to terrorize their people and reveal again to them who was in power.  Coming at the time of an economic crisis which exposed to white and black the mutual foe, the alleged rape of two white girls destined to act as a deterrent to black-white unity in struggle against the burdens of the crisis.  Scottsboro was destined to prevent a fundamental change of tactics in struggle for national liberation.  
  The Communists and the leadership of the ILD made the Scotts-boro Case a cause celebre.  They brought to that murderous frameup a new dimension.  They introduced the art of mass struggle, of de-fense demonstrations in the streets.  They fought for black-white unity as it must still be fought for if the progressive forces of our land are going to "overcome some day."  The ILD was ready for "the change."  That's why the ILD proceeded as it did.  It sought to get the masses and their leaders to probe beneath the surface and study the role played by the authorities of Jackson County, Alabama, and the top judicial forces of the Federal government in their rela-tions with the boys.
  The ILD leadership wanted an analysis of the class forces in-volved.  The NAACP protested this course as it did the leading press services and independent papers.  It was a conflict of tactics.  The

269