Last Scottsboro Boy Freed After 19 Years of Imprisonment

Andy Wright, the last imprisoned Scottsboro defendant, is released on parole on June 9, 1950, nineteen years after being falsely accused of rape in 1931. Most of the nine defendants had been imprisoned for years despite recantation by one accuser, proof of innocence, and international advocacy. The case documents how the Southern legal system could imprison Black men for decades on false charges. Clarence Norris, the only one sentenced to death who survived, is pardoned by Alabama Governor George Wallace in 1976.