face— / Its court, too weak to stand against a mob,
/ Its people’s heart, too small to hold a sob.” The
portraits of victims and aggressors in the volume
are poignant and direct.
The play Scottsboro Limitedstaged confronta-
tions and interactions among “Eight Black Boys, A
White Man, Two White Women, Eight Workers,
[and] Voices in the Audience.” The set directions
are minimal, calling only for a single chair that rep-
resents the electric chair used in capital punishment
cases, to be placed on the stage. The play opens as
the eight characters representing the Scottsboro
boys, “chained by the right foot, one to the other,
walk slowly down the center aisle from the back of
the auditorium.” Their entrance is disrupted when
the single white man of the cast who has been
seated in the audience, rises up to challenge their
arrival. The boys and man engage in a spirited set of
arguments. “We come in chains / To show our pain,”
says one boy; another insists that “death can’t kill” a
“sense of injustice,” and another declares that they
have come “So the people can see / What it means
to be / A poor black workman / In this land of the
free.” The play progresses with the boys and the
man involved in a set of clarifications, rebuttals, and
challenges. Racial epithets become part of the
heated exchange as tempers begin to flare. The girls
who claim to have been raped appear, and each boy
responds to the charges that the young women and
the judge make. As the courtroom scene comes to a
close, voices of a mob are heard. The level of intimi-
dation, both within and beyond the courtroom, is
rising considerably. The judge’s final words confirm
this. “Don’t worry folks, the law will take its course.
They’ll burn, and soon at that,” he says to the audi-
ence as he exits, “talking and smiling” with the al-
leged victims. Once the representatives of southern
mob law and racist white society leave, a “murmur”
of “red voices” begins. The “red voices” counter the
threats of the mob and help to rally the young boys.
The Scottsboro boys then team up with the workers
in an effort to achieve justice and racial unity. “The
voice of the red world / Is our voice too,” says one
boy as another declares, “With all of the workers, /
Black or white, / We’ll go forward / Out of the
night.” The play ends as the audience begins to
chant, “Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!” The stage direc-
tions call for the singing of the “Internationale” and
the raising of the red flag.
Some scholars suggest that the play never was
performed, but by May 1932 Hughes was able to
report to his longtime friend and correspondent
CARLVANVECHTENthat the play had been “pro-
duced quite effectively by the Rebel Players in Los
Angeles... before a big audience.” Hughes also
contributed to the performance, noting that he
“read a mass-chant and every one yelled beauti-
fully at the proper moments” (Bernard, 97).
The collection represents Hughes’s capacity
for searing political critique and powerful artistic
renderings of crises and challenges.Bibliography
Bernard, Emily. Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of
Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten.New York:
Knopf, 2001.
Berry, Faith, ed. Langston Hughes: Before and Beyond
Harlem.Westport, Conn.: Lawrence Hill & Com-
pany, 1983.
Rampersad, Arnold. The Life of Langston Hughes: I, Too,
Sing America.Vol. 1, 1902–1941.New York: Oxford
University Press, 1986.Scottsboro trial
The explosive case against nine young men rang-
ing in age from 13 to 19 years who were accused of
raping two white prostitutes in Alabama. The
events, which began in March 1931, evolved into
several years of legal struggles, national outpouring
of support, petitions to presidents, physical vio-
lence against the accused, and intervention by the
U.S. Supreme Court. The case was one of the most
gripping American legal proceedings and captured
the attention of many Harlem Renaissance figures
and writers.
The Scottsboro Boys, as the nine came to be
called, were Olen Montgomery, Clarence Norris,
Haywood Patterson, Ozie Powell, Willie Roberson,
Charlie Weems, Eugene Williams, Andy Wright,
and Roy Wright. All but one were sentenced to
death for a crime that they did not commit. One of
the alleged victims, Ruby Bates, later admitted
that she had lied and that the charges against the
nine were false.
The legal defense for the young men was both
highly publicized and extremely politicized. The
International Labor Defense Fund hired Clarence474 Scottsboro trial