A unique historical record of a dark incident in American history

"This extraordinary graphic book from 1935 reproduces 118 linocuts illustrating the history of African Americans up to and including the Scottsboro trials… the reproductions are excellent, and Lee and Robin D.G. Kelley provide background essays on the trials and the provenance of the book. A welcome addition to all collections… highly recommended."
—Library Journal, starred review

"Wow! This is political art at its most powerful. These evocative images outrage and provoke, leaving an indelible impression of an unjust world at an unjust time. Scottsboro, Alabama will incite you to join the struggle for racial equality and justice."
—Alan Dershowitz, author of Supreme Injustice

"A stunning artifact, Scottsboro, Alabama's narrative and images capture the tragedy of race in the American South. I haven't seen anything this tersely powerful in years."
— Nell Irvin Painter, author of Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol

"This stark, disturbing, pictorial record cuts across the decades in a way that no written analysis could. It is a remarkable find, as valuable for the discussions it will provoke about today as for what it recalls about the past.”
— Charles Payne, Sally Dalton Robinson Professor of African American Studies, History, and Sociology, Duke University

"Riveting! More than just the story of the Scottsboro Boys, this visual history of racial injustice is a penetrating example of the American Left’s struggle against racial discrimination, challenging in graphic detail the minstrel images, racist caricatures, and glorification of Klan violence prevalent at the time. Though the artists Tony Perez and Lin Shi Khan are unknown, because of them, the name Scottsboro again pricks the conscience of America more than seven decades later."
— Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Professor of History and Afro-American Studies, Harvard University

In 1931, nine black youths were falsely accused of raping two white women on a freight train traveling through northern Alabama. They were arrested and tried in four days, convicted of rape, and eight of them were sentenced to death. The ensuing legal battle spanned six years and involved two landmark decisions by the Supreme Court. One of the most well known and controversial legal decisions of our time, the Scottsboro case ignited the collective emotions of the country, which was still struggling to come to terms with fundamental issues of racial equality.

Scottsboro, Alabama, which consists of 118 exceptionally powerful linoleum prints, provides a unique graphic history of one of the most infamous, racially-charged episodes in the annals of the American judicial system, and of the racial and class struggle of the time. Originally printed in Seattle in 1935, this hitherto unknown document, of which no other known copies exist, is presented here for the first time. It includes a foreword by Robin D.G. Kelley and an introduction by Andrew H. Lee. Mr. Lee discovered the book as part of a gift to the Tamiment Library by the family of Joe North, an important figure in the Communist Party-USA, and an editor at the seminal left-wing journal, the New Masses.

A true historical find and an excellent tool for teaching the case itself and the period which it so indelibly marked, this book allows us to see the Scottsboro case through a unique and highly provocative lens.

About The Authors

Andrew H. Lee is a librarian at the Tamiment Library at New York University. Robin D.G. Kelley is Professor of History at New York University and author of, most recently, Yo' Mama's Disfunktional! Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America.