Prentiss taylor scottsboro unlimited cycle

Artist: Prentiss Taylor
Title: Scottsboro Limited, from the portfolio Scottsboro
Date: 1932
Medium: Lithograph
Dimensions: 10 7/8 x 13 7/8 in.
Credit: Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, 1992.57

In Scottsboro, Alabama in 1931, nine young Black men, ranging in age from 13 to 19 years old, were falsely accused of raping two white women on a train.

Although the charges against them were not credible, all except for one 13-year-old were swiftly convicted and sentenced to the death by an all-white jury. Over the next few years, there were retrials, and some of the convictions were overturned or dismissed; some of the defendants were eventually paroled.

Nevertheless, the case, known as “The Shame of America,” became a symbol of the injustice and persistent racism in the United States.

The Scottsboro case quickly drew national and international attention and was a rallying point for left-wing artists and writers.

Prentiss Taylor was a young,