Olen Montgomery was one of the nine young men known as the "Scottsboro boys" who in 1931 was arrested on trumped up charges--despite the fact that he was blind in one eye and walked with a limp, and spent most of the train trip in which he and the others were hitchiking laying on the floor of a freight car--of raping two white women, and who with his eight co-defendants faced almost certain death in a racially divided south. His conviction, as would those of the other nine, would eventually be overturned, and Montgomery would attempt to resume a quiet life, although his experiences in court and prison left him as well as the other defendants emotionally scarred, and he battled problems of alcoholism. His death date is unknown.
Olen Montgomery was one of the nine young men known as the "Scottsboro boys" who in 1931 was arrested on trumped up charges--despite the fact that he was blind in one eye and walked with a limp, and spent most of the train trip in which he and the others were hitchiking laying on the floor of a freight car--of raping two white women, and who with his eight co-defendants faced almost certain death in a racially divided south. His conviction, as would those of the other nine, would eventually be overturned, and Montgomery would attempt to resume a quiet life, although his experiences in court and prison left him as well as the other defendants emotionally scarred, and he battled problems of alcoholism. His death date is unknown.
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