
POW/MIA
No man is dead unless he is forgotten
The war in Vienam in the 1960's has become unpopular with the American people. Of the soliders lost, there are still some unaccounted for. There are many organizations keeping the memory of America's lost soldiers alive.
Since 1975, the US government has received thousands of reports relating to Americans still alive in Southeast Asia. Many of them cannot be dimissed as untrue. Officially, the US says it is operating under the assumption that men are being held, and that the matter is of "highest national priority". Yet, the mystery of their fate has been unresolved. If any of these lost men are alive, they must be brought home at any costs. "A man is not dead unless he is forgotten."
The Scottsboro Boys
1932-1976
Caught In Hatreds Web
In the Black community there are legends, living and dead. The case of the Scottsboro Boys started in 1932 when nine young men (Charlie Weems, Ozie Powell, Clarence Norris, Olen Montgomery, Willie Roberson, Haywood Patterson, Andy and Roy Wright and Eugene Williams) tried fleeing from poverty on a freight train. With only their youth and dreams they set out to find a better life and found only a cruel system that turned on them.
The nine boys were charged with the rape of two white women. One woman was an admitted prostitute and the other's claim to virtue was questionable. They were tried without adequate counsel, and hastily convicted on the basis of shallow evidence. All but one was sentenced to death. The International Labor Defense was unable to win the defendants' unconditional release, but the case had political implications.
On appeal in 1935, the US Supreme Court ruled that the defendants' constitutional rights were violated because Blacks were systematically excluded from jury rolls. But it wasn't until 1976 that the last of the Scottsboro boys, Clarence Norris, was finally pardoned.

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