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O C T O B E R 2 0 1 0 291 serve a way of life soon to be “gone with the wind,” Majewski convincingly argues that “secession rhetoric and economic policy had established one of the most enduring contributions of southern history: the quest for a dynamic, diversified, and modern economy” (p. 161). Modernizing a Slave Economy is a valuable contribution to the literature on southern economic thought and resulting policy. Majewski presents a bold, revisionist argument that should inspire continued study and debate. One such study might be to test Majewski’s arguments in such major cotton-producing states as Alabama and Mississippi. In any event, he convincingly defends his thesis with excellent archival research, particularly diaries and personal correspondence. Also of great use is the inclusion of a thoroughly annotated bibliographic review of primary and secondary sources—a practice that sadly seems to be missing in most recent books. Finally, he does what this reviewer thought nearly impossible —he presents economic history in a neatly organized, graceful writing style. Majewski masterfully combines hard economic data with a flowing narrative. His charts and graphs are insightful while not being obtrusive. The result of his efforts is an important addition to the literature of the antebellum South and the Confederacy that will be of great value to academicians, graduate and undergraduate students, and the general reading public alike. LONNIE A. BURNETT University of Mobile Remembering Scottsboro: The Legacy of an Infamous Trial. By James A. Miller. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009. xii, 280 pp. $55.00 (cloth). ISBN 978-0-691-09080-1. $27.95 (paper). ISBN 978-0-69114047 -6. On March 25, 1931, a fight broke out between black and white youths riding a freight train through northern Alabama. As a result Alabama authorities removed nine African American youths and two white girls from the train. To avoid arrest, the girls charged the blacks with sexual assault, and all nine were charged with rape. Despite inadequate counsel and contradictory evidence, within days a Scottsboro court sentenced eight of the boys to death by electrocution. The saga of the Scottsboro Boys, one of the most notorious legal cases in American history, is the subject of James Miller’s new book. Arguing that ghosts of the Civil Rights era “continue to haunt American life” (p.1), his work explores “the cultural and historical forces that have kept the memories of Scottsboro alive” T H E A L A B A M A R E V I E W 292 (p. 3) and their meaning for our parlance about race, even seventy years after the original incident. The publicity strategy pursued by the boys’ counsel, the communistaf filiated International Labor Defense, brought the case widespread national and international attention. Thus communist representations of the Scottsboro boys as industrious, marginalized victims of a backwards, racist South became dominant images beginning in the 1930s. Previous Scottsboro books focus on the trials or on biographies of individual defendants . Uniquely, Miller’s book explains how representations of the Scottsboro Boys or related themes proliferated in 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s poetry, prose, stage plays, and films, partially accounting for the longevity of the Scottsboro imagery. In the 1930s writers such as Langston Hughes visited the Scottsboro Boys in jail and chronicled their story. Hughes wrote essays and poems based on their plight, which he read during a southern speaking tour, including one that portrayed the boys’ undeserved fate as Christlike. During this heyday of communist influence in America, Scottsboro caused many writers to embrace radical politics. Hughes was among them. So were Richard Wright, who joined the Communist Party, and Nancy Cunard, who proclaimed that only communism’s promised new world order could solve the race problem. Not surprisingly, many of the dramatic stage productions of the era focused on efforts in which black and white workers, led by communists, engaged in interracial organizing efforts. James Miller, using the prism of Scottsboro, demonstrates that these efforts frequently failed because those in power were able to destroy the workers’ leaders by accusing them of raping white women. We know the fear of communism was especially potent in the South, where opponents believed...

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