Abstract

Memory and Politics

The article focuses on the book "Stories of Scottsboro: The Rape Case That Shocked 1930's America and Revived the Struggle for Equality," by James Goodman. A masterful storyteller and writer, Goodman weaves an intricate tale, telling and retelling the stories of each participant, from the alleged rape victims Victoria Price and Ruby Bates to the New South elites, from the Communists to the defendants themselves. These poor working-class women, exploited and degraded, surviving on sex work as an occasional alternative to the long tedious hours at the mill, had only their white skin and, in certain circumstances, their gender to protect them. And it only protected them when the state and white mobs had a yearning to execute some black men. Goodman reminds that remembering and telling what one remembers can be a significant political act.