Mar 20 at 10:30 AM - Sale 2697 -
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Sale 2697 - Lot 95

Estimate: $ 12,000 - $ 18,000
(CIVIL RIGHTS.) Hollace Ransdell. Report on the Scottsboro, Ala. Case. [2], 21, [1] mimeographed typescript pages. Quarto, 11 x 8½ inches, staple-bound; outer leaves detached with moderate wear and toning. New York: American Civil Liberties Union, 27 May 1931
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A rich mine of original research and sympathetic commentary from early in the years-long defense of the "Scottsboro Boys." The alleged rape on the freight train took place on 25 March 1931, and the rushed trials of nine defendants began on 6 April. Three days later, eight of them were sentenced to be executed. This sentence quickly mobilized three organizations to their defense: the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Communist Party U.S.A., and the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU wanted to know the facts on the ground in Alabama. They sent a white woman named Hollace Vivian Ransdell (1894-1983). Her 1912 yearbook at Colorado Springs High School had noted "She is a winsome wee thing." She graduated from Colorado College in 1916, later worked at the Economics Library at Columbia University in New York, and was a widely-published journalist with leftist and union publications.

The report begins with a retelling of the accusation and the basic facts of the hasty first trial. She cites sources that the two girls did not place their rape charges until after seeing that the nine boys were being arrested for trespassing; and that Victoria Price directed prosecutors to avoid putting the other witnesses on the stand "because they could not make their testimony fit in with the positive identification of the Negroes" (page 6).

Another interesting angle is Ransdell's depiction of a simmering turf war between the NAACP and the Communists, which both saw this as a case which could boost their profiles. However, the Communists were prone to provocative public statements, while the NAACP preferred to work quietly and develop the support of local moderates: "The two organizations differ so fundamentally on principles and tactics, that any hope of a compromise in the legal control of the case seems impossible" (page 9). The two groups eventually did share in the defense.

The second half of the report, based largely on local interviews, is almost sociological: "Why Do People Do Such Things?" Ransdell explores the extent and context of racism in the deep south, and the troubled upbringings of the two accusers. Her non-threatening demeanor proved to be very helpful in her investigation. She met with the two alleged victims at their homes; their casual racism and efforts to synchronize their stories were on full display. As Ransdell described, "the only opinion they had run across so far was that which said the 'Niggers' must get the death penalty at once or be lynched. Never having met with any other attitude on the Negro question, they both assumed that this was my attitude also, and therefore spoke to me as they thought all respectable white people speak" (page 16).

The final two pages are devoted to a summary: "Obvious Evidences of Miscarriage of Justice." Ransdell concludes: "Can any person not poisoned with race prejudice still maintain that the Scottsboro trial was 'fair and just' and that the eight Negro boys deserve execution?"

Some of the few known surviving copies of this report are incomplete. The ACLU's own copy, the only one scanned on line, is lacking the title, table of contents, and final leaf (all found here). 4 in OCLC, and none traced at auction. Provenance: apparently loaned by Ransdell late in life to Emory University; the return envelope addressed to her married name Hollace Ransdell Roos is included, with an illegible postmark but bearing stamps introduced in 1975. Later held in the collection of the Marxist historian Herbert Aptheker (1915-2003); to the consignor in the mid-1990s.

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