Know their story.
“We are committed to advancing reconciliation and healing, while promoting civil rights.”
A LOOK INSIDE.
A LOOK INSIDE.
The Scottsboro Boys Museum commemorates the lives and legacy of nine young African Americans who, in the 1930s, became international symbols of race-based injustice in the American South, and celebrates the positive actions of those of all colors, creeds, and origins who have taken a stand against the tyranny of racial oppression.
The Scottsboro Boys Museum is located in the historic Joyce Chapel in Scottsboro, Alabama.
Current & Upcoming events
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Juneteenth at the Museum with Keynote Speaker, Bill Baxley
Join The Scottsboro Boys Museum in celebrating Juneteenth on Thursday, June 19, 2025. The museum will open free of charge for tours at 9:30 a.m., our program will begin at 11 a.m., and festivities will continue until 2 p.m. We are honored to welcome Keynote Speaker Bill Baxley. This event offers fun for the whole family with food trucks, activities, and entertainment. Come join the museum in celebrating freedom — RSVP here
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Language Accessibility
The Museum recently premered its feature allowing guests to experience parts of the exhibit in their choice of 11 languages via QR codes
Recent News & Events
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Museum Honors the Late Archie F. Stewart
On May 28, 2025 the museum commemorated civil rights leader, educator, and long-time Jackson County community activist Archie F. Stewart
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Scottsboro Boys 94th Anniversary Remembrance Concert
Scottsboro Boys 94th Anniversary Remembrance Concert featured Lapidus & Myles in concert at the Museum on March 22, 2025
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Malcolm Gladwell's 'Revisionist History' podcast visits the Museum
Description goesMalcolm Gladwell's podcast Revisionist History featured the Scottsboro Boys Museum where our Executive Director Dr. Thomas Reidy was interviewed about our case and boycotts in the 1930s here
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Premiere of the Google Interactive Kiosk
The Google interactive kiosk makes available the museum's digital archives including interviews with Clarence Norris and attorneys, plus other important media about the case
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Scottsboro Boys Travel Exhibit in Birmingham
Birmingham Public Library, Downtown Branch:
September 3 to October 14, 2024Tuesday, October 8, 2024
Dr. Alex Lichtenstein of Indiana University and Tyler Malugani of Sloss Furnaces gave presentations on aspects of convict leasing -
93rd Anniversary Commemoration
The 93rd Anniversary Commemoration of the Start of the Scottsboro Boys Trials was held Saturday, April 6. At 10am, guests walked from the museum to the gravesite of SBM founder Sheila Washington, and at 11:30am, enjoyed a program with speaker Judge Herman N. Johnson Jr and live music at the Museum
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Scottsboro Boys Travel Exhibit
Monday, February 5, 2024 at 6pm in the Main Auditorium at the Huntsville Madison County Public Library, downtown
Opening remarks by Kevin Gray, Chair of the HMCPL Board of Directors
Thomas Reidy, Executive Director of The Scottsboro Boys Museum spoke on "Red Alabama: Jim Crow, Communism, and the Scottsboro Boys Case"The exhibit was on view in Huntsville February 1 to March 2, 2024 and at the Montgomery, Alabama Department of Archives and History May 15 through the month of July
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Museum Receives Prestigious Historical Museum Award
The Scottsboro Boys Museum was honored by the Alabama Historical Association at their Annual Meeting
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Scottsboro Boys Travel Exhibit at Temple B'nai Sholom
Sunday, February 11, 2024 from 2-4pm at Temple B’nai Sholom, 103 Lincoln St SE in Huntsville
Temple B'nai Sholom hosted the Scottsboro Boys travel exhibit for the day
The program lfeatured The Scottsboro Boys Museum Executive Director Dr. Thomas Reidy, who discussed the case and the reaction of Alabama's Jewish community to the trials
Sponsored by the Alabama Historical Alliance and Historic Huntsville Foundation
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Community Art Project at the Museum in Collaboration with NACC
Through February, guests were invited to create and hang a tag to hang on our Memorial Wall commemorating the Scottsboro Boys case and Black History Month
Project premiered Thursday, February 8, 2024 from 9:30-11am at the Museum
Steven Whited, Instructor of Criminal Justice at NACC spoke
The community art project was eveloped by NACC Instructor of Art, Jaia Chen
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From Paint Rock to Selma: How the Scottsboro Boys Sparked the Civil Rights Movement
On January 18, 2025 the Museum hosted an open house with Dr Thomas Reidy speaking about how the Scottsboro Boys case sparked the civil rights movement
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Museum Named Attraction of the Year
The Scottsboro Boys Museum was awarded 2024 Attraction of the Year by the Alabama Mountain Lakes Tourist Association
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WLRH 89.3 Interview on Scottsboro Boys Exhibit at HMCPL
SBM Executive Director Dr. Tom Reidy and Heather Adkins, Special Collections Manager at HMCPL, join Katy Ganaway in this conversation
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WHNT's Paving the Way: One Generation at a Time
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Comeback Town, AL.com with Executive Director, Dr Thomas Reidy
Dr Reidy is a guest columnist on ‘Birmingham, A Story of Communism You May Not Know’
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WHNT News 19: The 93rd Anniversary of the Scottsboro Boys Arrest and Trials
Click here to view the special piece WHNT News 19 produced on the 93rd anniversary and comemoration we hosted April 6
Museum Regular Hours:
Wednesday through Friday, 10:00am - 3:00pm
Saturday, 10:00am - 4:00pm
$10/adults $6/students and seniors
Tours are available by appointment: to schedule, call 256-912-0471
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This Month’s Featured Artist Charles Shipp
Nine portraits were created as part of an exhibition in Memphis, Tennessee in conjunction with Playhouse on the Square’s regional premiere of “Scottsboro Boys, the Musical” in January 2023.
The idea of an empty chair carries multiple meanings. Chairs are used as a dominant piece of the scenery throughout “Scottsboro Boys.” The southern white narrator in the show often demands that the boys “sit down.” As such, the chair reinforces the idea of Black subservience in the 1930s. Perhaps represents the electric chair–a fate the prisoners ultimately avoided but one that nonetheless was a constant and menacing presence, and a reminder of their precarious situation? Finally, empty chairs remind all of us personal displacement, and in the case of the nine Scottsboro Boys, of not being at home for dinner, or at school, or at other places one might expect a teenager to be.
The nine are painted under an unforgiving spotlight that is cast upon them as the trial unfolded, and which follows them to this day. An empty chair stands in front of each boy, seemingly becoming a part of the prison bars and a part of each boy. By depicting the nine Scottsboro Boys as being somehow genetically linked to the prison bars, neither fully free nor fully imprisoned, the artist seems to suggest that their story is likewise unfinished as they, and as we, wait for final resolution.
Created using acrylic paint and mixed media on canvas, the artist opted not to paint their faces, instead used the first group photograph of the boys, taken less than 24 hours after their arrest. The faces from that image were digitally sized, isolated, printed, and placed onto the canvas. This particular photograph was chosen because it was the earliest photograph of the group– before the prison system had changed them and the trial had taken its toll.
Book a Tour
Please use the form to book a tour for your school. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us at our phone number.
Find us on the Civil Rights Trail
The Scottsboro Boys Museum makes an ideal starting point for your journey along Alabama's Civil Rights Trail. The defendants' years of disappointment and heartaches left in its wake a somber trail; but it was a path that helped clarify many of the tactics and strategies which would benefit later civil rights struggles.
Interested in Being a Volunteer?
We are looking for reliable people who want to make a difference to volunteer at our museum. If you are interested, or if you know someone who may be interested, please contact us!