Andy Wright was nineteen when he was arrested along with eight other black youths and charged with raping two white women. Wright was twice convicted of the charges and was not paroled until 1944. In this letter to the editor of the Nation magazine, Wright pleads his case after his second conviction. He contends that he was framed and tries to bring the misconduct of both the police investigators and the trial judge to the attention of the public.
Dear Sirs:
I am quite sure you all have read the outcome of my trial, and seen that I was given a miscarriage of justice. I feel it is my duty to write you all the facts of my case, which you perhaps overlooked, or perhaps it was not published in the papers. I was framed, cheated, and robbed of my freedom. First, beginning March 25, 26, and 27, 1931, I wasn’t charged with criminal assault on either girl, and was carried through the first, second, and third degree, and even on the basis I would gain my freedom by turning state evidence against the other eight boys. Just because I didn’t know nothing, nor neither would I lie on the other boys the charge of rape was framed and placed against me on the 28th day of March, 1931.
I was tried, convicted, and given the death sentence, and in November, 1932, the Supreme Court of the United States reversed the sentence and a retrial ordered. The 19th day of July, 1937, I was retried and sentenced to 99 years’ imprisonment.
Now I wish to call your attention to how the judge charged the jury. He charged them in a perjury way. Out of his one hour and twenty-five minutes summation he only mentioned acquittal three times and each time he contradicted it by saying if you juries find a doubt which goes to me reconsider it. Never did he mention a single defense witness in his hour and twenty-five minutes summation to the jury.
How can I receive justice in the state of Alabama, especially of Morgan County, when perjury is used against me and my attorneys too? And I beg you, dear friends, readers, all stick together and work and struggle together and see that justice be brought to light. Let us all pull and struggle together and see that justice be done. It is not that I hate to go to prison, but I am innocent, and the slander is being thrown on our race of people and my family, is my reason of wanting to fight harder than ever.
ANDY WRIGHT
Montgomery, Ala., July 24
Source: Andy Wright, letter to the editors, The Nation, August 7, 1937, 159–60.
From The Nation, August 7, 1937. © 1937 The Nation Company, LLC. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this Content without express written permission is prohibited.
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