Document 12G: "10,000 Hear Pleas to Free Negroes; Union Square Traffic Halted as Reds Urge Racial Unity in Scottsboro Defense...Mother of Condemned Youth Appeals for Funds," New York Times, 15 April 1933, p. 4.

by Sara L. Creed and Hasia Diner
Document 12G: "10,000 Hear Pleas to Free Negroes; Union Square Traffic Halted as Reds Urge Racial Unity in Scottsboro Defense...Mother of Condemned Youth Appeals for Funds," New York Times, 15 April 1933, p. 4. Included in How Did Women Shape the Discourse and Further Interracial Cooperation in the Worldwide Mass Movement to Free the Scottsboro Boys?, by Sara L. Creed and Hasia Diner. (Binghamton, NY: State University of New York at Binghamton, 2004).
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10,000 HEAR PLEAS

TO FREE NEGROES

_______________________

Union Square Traffic Halted

as Reds Urge Racial Unity

in Scottsboro Defense.

_______________________

LEIBOWITZ WON'T SPEAK

_______________________

Counsel Declines "Soapbox" Role

--Mother of Condemned Youth

Appeals for Funds.

_______________________

    An orderly meeting of Communists listened last night in Union Square to speakers for the International Labor Defense plead for unity among white persons and Negroes to fight for the release of the "Scottsboro boys."

    The mass meeting started shortly after 5 P. M., with about 2,000 in attendance, and an hour later it had grown to such numbers that the police found it necessary to halt pedestrian traffic through Union Square. They estimated the crowd at 10,000. ...

    The appearance of Mrs. Jennie Patterson, mother of Hayward Patterson, convicted last week in Decatur, Ala., was the signal for prolonged cheering. She was escorted to the platform by Richard B. Moore, Negro attorney, and John Ballam, district secretary of the International Labor Defense, who presided. Mrs. Patterson spoke briefly in praise of the attorneys who defended her son, and then pleaded for funds to continue the fight. ...

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