The Scottsboro Boys

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/scottsboro/SB_acct.html

Richard Wright, taking on the voice of African Americans, particularly freed slaves traveling North for work, makes a reference to the nine "Scottsboro Boys," who in 1931 were accused of gang raping two white girls on a Southern Railroad freight run. Wright places the reference in very close proximity to an argument about the road in which black and white people have travelled. He writes;

"We were able to seize nine black boys in a jail in Scottsboro, Alabama, lift them so high in our collective hands, focus such a battery of comment and interpretation upon them, that they became symbols to all the world of the plight of black folk in America," (145).

"If we had been allowed to participate in the vital processes of America's national growth, what would have been the texture of our lives, the pattern of our traditions, the routine of our customs, the state of our arts, the code of our laws, the function of our government! Whatever others may say, we black folk say that America would have been stronger and greater!" (145).

Wright continues to argue that Africans who were brought to America to be slaves, have travelled the same road in 300 years that whites have traversed in 3,000. Do you agree? And what might it mean for Wright to place the Scottsboro Boys reference right next to the idea that our lives would have been remarkably different had African Americans been able to "participate in the vital processes of America's national growth"?