Back in the days when raping a white woman was a capital offense in some southern states, an unfortunate group of black teenagers found themselves swirling in a steaming cauldron of race-fueled hysteria from which they’d never really escape.
During the Depression, people looking for work often hopped freight trains to distant cities. On the night of March 25, 1931—75 years ago—a fight broke out between black and white youths on a freight train to Memphis. The blacks forced all but one of the outnumbered whites off the train, and the whites told the stationmaster they’d been assaulted by a group of blacks. The stationmaster radioed ahead, and a white mob rounded up nine of the teens and took them to jail.