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The "Scottsboro Stories" blog reflects the writings, photographs, arrangements, opinions and musings of me, Garry L. Morgan, only. I do not represent the Scottsboro Boys Museum or the Scottsboro Multicultural Foundation - the parent organization of the Scottsboro Boys Museum. I receive no profit from this endeavor. This blog is for educational purposes and that of open expression about racial and sexual discrimination, institutional and personal racism and the deadliest war of all time - "The Culture War."


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Monday, March 31, 2014

Clarence Norris Estate Seeks Restitution

"WAFF NEWS Ch 48 -  Scottsboro, Alabama - The estate of Clarence Norris is now seeking damages from the state for being wrongfully imprisoned. Hartline said the state passed a law in 2001, which allows people who receive pardons for being wrongfully accused to be eligible for $50,000 or more for each year spent in jail before the pardon was issued... 
Hartline said they are petitioning the state for 15 years, which equals a minimum of $750,000."  http://www.waff.com/story/25122195/estate-of-scottsboro-boy-sues-for-wrongful-imprisonment

Read the petition filed on behalf of Norris' estate here. Summary  |  Supporting documents



University of Missouri at Kansas City School of Law Bio on Clarence Norris, Sr.- "Clarence Norris died in Bronx Community Hospital on Janurary 23, 1989 at the age of seventy-six.  He was, as the title of a book he helped write suggested, the last of the Scottsboro Boys."

"Norris was the second of eleven children born to Georgia sharecroppers.  He attended school only to second grade, then at age seven began working in the cotton fields.  Norris had a job in a Goodyear plant, working up to sixteen hours a day, when his girlfriend left and he decided to hit the railroad tracks."

"When Norris, who had been one of those involved in the train fight with white boys, was accused of rape he thought he "was as good as dead."  According to Norris, on the night before the first trial, he was removed from his cell, beaten and told to turn state's evidence if he wanted to save his life.  At the first trial in Scottsboro, Norris testified that theother blacks raped Price and Bates and that he alone was innocent: "They all raped her, everyone of them." "

"Norris's second conviction was overturned by the U. S. Supreme Court in the landmark case of Norris vs Alabama, which found Alabama's system of excluding blacks from jury rolls to violate the Fourteenth Amendment.  Norris was convicted a third time in 1937 (in what Norris termed "a Kangaroo Court"), and again sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted to life in prison by Governor Graves.  Norris was bitter over developments which left him and four others in prison, while four boys were released.  He believed that he was paying the price for their freedom.
Norris fought often in prison.  One incident in 1943 landed him ten days in the hole with only a blanket, bread, and water.  Another incident brought on a beating with a leather strap. "

"Norris was first paroled in 1944.  He moved to New York in violation of his parole, and was returned to prison.  In 1946, he was a paroled a second time.  He got a job shoveling coal in Cleveland for three years, then moved to New York City.  Unemployed in 1956, Norris visited Samuel Liebowitz who arranged a job for him as a dishwasher. "

"In the 1960's, Norris asked the help of the NAACP in obtaining a pardon from the State of Alabama.  Norris had violated parole when he left Alabama and was a fugitive subject to parole revocation and a return to prison.  A successful full-scale campaign was mounted, and in 1976 Norris received his pardon from Governor George Wallace."  http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/scottsboro/SB_bSBs.html#The%20Scottsboro%20Boys

Alabama Heritage, Summer 2012, The Improbable Pardon of Clarence Norris: http://www.alabamaheritage.com/Scottsboro/ALH_Reidy_Awaiting%20Justice.pdf

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