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‘Scottsboro’ offers no Southern comfort
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The JCC celebrates Jewish Book Month
Reviewed by Susan H. Kahn
Assistant Editor
The Mandel JCC Festival of Jewish Books & Authors runs through Nov. 23. The CJN staff has reviewed this year’s festival’s featured books. All author events take place at The Mandel JCC unless otherwise indicated. For tickets to paid events, 866-546-1358 or www.clevejcc.org. For reservations to free events, 216-593-6235.
Scottsboro. By Ellen Feldman. W.W. Norton & Company. New York and London. 2008. 363 pp. $24.95.
“Even after all these years, the injustice still stuns. Innocent boys sentenced to die, not for a crime they did not commit, but for a crime that never occurred.”
Scottsboro
On March 25, 1931, nine black youths riding the Alabama Great Southern freight train were goaded into a fight with a group of white men. The “Negroes” bested their tormentors, but at the next stop, the young men, ranging in age from 13 to 19, were greeted by a white mob, looking for payback. Soon after, two young white women (showing no sign of abuse) emerged from another boxcar. In a moment, the charge of rape was leveled at the boys.
In the semi-fictional Scottsboro, author Ellen Feldman provides the shocking details of a shameful episode in our nation’s history, putting the events into their political, social and economic context. She reveals the undercurrents of anti-Semitism, misogyny and racial prejudice that infected the Deep South and incorporates the stories of some of the individuals who played key roles in the ongoing tragedy.
There are two first-person narrators. One is the fictional Alice Whittier, a tough, ambitious New York journalist and early feminist who works for a left-leaning journal. She eagerly heads to Alabama to cover the story she senses could make her career. She is not alone. Lawyers, judges, the NAACP and the Communist party are also eager to exploit the Scottsboro boys for their own ends.
The other narrator is Ruby Bates, a poor 17-year-old mill worker who is functionally illiterate. She is persuaded to go along with the fabricated accusation of her rape against by her wily friend Victoria Price, who recognizes it as a way the women can avoid being charged with vagrancy, “riding the rails and crossing state lines with men ain’t our kin.”
The sudden notoriety of the trial makes celebrities out of the two “defiled” women. Strangers buy them new clothes and shower them with attention. Despite her newfound notoriety, Ruby comes to regret her lies, and fearing for her “eternal soul,” she eventually recants. The tough Victoria never does.
The first trial and numerous subsequent retrials take place against the backdrop of the Great Depression, about which Feldman writes movingly, almost lyrically. Her evocative dialogue (some of it in Southern dialect) helps create a moving depiction of society’s underclass. Scottsboro deals with an ugly topic – lives ruined by prejudice and racism – but it is a lovely book.
Ellen Feldman speaks Mon., Nov. 17, at 1. There is a fee. Reservations required.
Assistant Editor
The Mandel JCC Festival of Jewish Books & Authors runs through Nov. 23. The CJN staff has reviewed this year’s festival’s featured books. All author events take place at The Mandel JCC unless otherwise indicated. For tickets to paid events, 866-546-1358 or www.clevejcc.org. For reservations to free events, 216-593-6235.
Scottsboro. By Ellen Feldman. W.W. Norton & Company. New York and London. 2008. 363 pp. $24.95.
“Even after all these years, the injustice still stuns. Innocent boys sentenced to die, not for a crime they did not commit, but for a crime that never occurred.”
Scottsboro
On March 25, 1931, nine black youths riding the Alabama Great Southern freight train were goaded into a fight with a group of white men. The “Negroes” bested their tormentors, but at the next stop, the young men, ranging in age from 13 to 19, were greeted by a white mob, looking for payback. Soon after, two young white women (showing no sign of abuse) emerged from another boxcar. In a moment, the charge of rape was leveled at the boys.
In the semi-fictional Scottsboro, author Ellen Feldman provides the shocking details of a shameful episode in our nation’s history, putting the events into their political, social and economic context. She reveals the undercurrents of anti-Semitism, misogyny and racial prejudice that infected the Deep South and incorporates the stories of some of the individuals who played key roles in the ongoing tragedy.
There are two first-person narrators. One is the fictional Alice Whittier, a tough, ambitious New York journalist and early feminist who works for a left-leaning journal. She eagerly heads to Alabama to cover the story she senses could make her career. She is not alone. Lawyers, judges, the NAACP and the Communist party are also eager to exploit the Scottsboro boys for their own ends.
The other narrator is Ruby Bates, a poor 17-year-old mill worker who is functionally illiterate. She is persuaded to go along with the fabricated accusation of her rape against by her wily friend Victoria Price, who recognizes it as a way the women can avoid being charged with vagrancy, “riding the rails and crossing state lines with men ain’t our kin.”
The sudden notoriety of the trial makes celebrities out of the two “defiled” women. Strangers buy them new clothes and shower them with attention. Despite her newfound notoriety, Ruby comes to regret her lies, and fearing for her “eternal soul,” she eventually recants. The tough Victoria never does.
The first trial and numerous subsequent retrials take place against the backdrop of the Great Depression, about which Feldman writes movingly, almost lyrically. Her evocative dialogue (some of it in Southern dialect) helps create a moving depiction of society’s underclass. Scottsboro deals with an ugly topic – lives ruined by prejudice and racism – but it is a lovely book.
Ellen Feldman speaks Mon., Nov. 17, at 1. There is a fee. Reservations required.
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