The Daily Worker

Scottsboro Trial Rouses Negroes to Greater Militancy
White Ruling Class Demands Lynching. Talks of Civil War. Returned Observer Says

AT THE PROSECUTION TABLE: "If them niggers don't behave, we'll get fired!"

NEW YORK.-"One of the most remarkable things about the Scottsboro trial is the change that has come over the Negro population," declared a member of the John Reed Club, who has just come back from the trial, in an interview with the Daily Worker.

"Negroes who all their lives had been cowed by the white ruling class are now holding their heads up," he said. They are aroused and determined to fight for their rights. The Scottsboro case has welded them together and given them a new dignity, a new realization of their strength.

Tribute To Negro Witnesses
"A striking example of this was the wonderful way in which the Negro witnesses conducted themselves. Their dignity, their unfaltering testimony in the face of persistent insults and bullying by Attorney General Knight made them a striking contrast to the prosecution witnesses despite the fact that the latter had obviously been well coached. This was the dignity and courage of a people that for the first time had found a voice, for the first time was speaking out against oppression, conscious of the support of tens of thousands of white workers all over the country."

The John Reed Club member, whose name cannot for obvious reasons be revealed, declared that most of the Negro witnesses were actually taking their lives into their hands by testifying.

"There were, for example," he said, "about 20 witnesses from Scottsboro. Every one of them is personally known to Benson, editor of the Scottsboro Progressive Age, who was a prosecution witness. Every one of them is a marked man from now on."

Bourbon Culture Is Lynch Culture
Discussing the feeling among the white population, the John Reed Club member said that the trial has tended to crystallize the most reactionary sentiments. "The cultured members of the ruling class," he said, "are among the most outspoken defenders of the lynch system. They are not interested in the guilt or innocence of the boys. They realize that the entire system of Negro oppression is at stake and they are determined to defend it to the last ditch. It may seem surprising, but I have heard some of these representatives of southern bourbon culture talk about a new civil war.

"These people state quite frankly that the 14th and 15th amendments were punitive war measures put over by the North after the Civil War and should be repealed.

"As for the workers and farmers, most of these 'poor whites' have been so saturated with ruling class poison that they repeat similar ideas though their own lot is little better than that of the Negroes. Nevertheless, I have heard some of them declare that if the boys are innocent, they should be freed."