MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Alabama's parole board has approved of granting posthumous pardons in the infamous "Scottsboro Boys" rape case.
The board made the decision during a Thursday morning hearing in Montgomery for three black men whose convictions were never overturned in a case that came to symbolize racial injustice in the Deep South in the 1930s.
Nine black males were falsely accused of raping two white women on a train in northeast Alabama in 1931. The men were convicted by all-white juries, and all but the youngest defendant were sentenced to death.
Five of the cases were overturned in 1937, and one man received a pardon before his death in 1976. The board says it is now offering formal pardons for Charles Weems, Andy Wright and Haywood Patterson.
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