An Alabama parole board made an unanimous decision in the infamous "Scottsboro Boys" rape case during a hearing in Montgomery on Thursday to approve posthumous pardons 80 years after nine African American men were arrested, the Associated Press reported.
The decision attempts to rectify and provide closure for the Scottsboro incident which was clouded with racial injustice and discrimination when death sentences were given in the 1930's, according to the AP.
There were a total of nine black males who were all falsely accused of raping two white women on a Alabama train in 1931, according to the AP. Only the youngest of the nine was not sentenced the death penalty.
In April, the Alabama Legislature passed a bill which allows the parole board to approve posthumous pardons for cases where the convictions involve racial discrimination, the AP reported.
The state senator who got the bill passed to permit posthumous pardons said the Scottsboro Boys' lives were ruined by public officials and juries who ignored evidence, and "that it was time to right a wrong," the AP reported.
Five of the nine convictions were overturned in 1937 after one of the victim's changed her story. Another defendant, Clarence Norris, was given a pardon before his death sentence in 1976, according to the AP.
The three convicted men who were pardoned on Thursday were Charles Weems, Andy Wright and Haywood Patterson. Nothing could be done for the members because state law does not permit posthumous pardons, the AP reported.
"It is a promising reminder of how far we have come from those regretful days in our past," Republican Sen. Arthur Orr of Decatur said of the pardon, the AP reported.
The case, which has inspired films, books and even a Broadway musical in 2010, has been a symbol of racial injustice and the pardon for the remaining three eligible Scottsboro Boys gives them all a new ending.
Scottsboro Boys Museum Founder, Shelia Washington, said the pardon "give the history books a new ending - not guilty," according to the AP.
The museum plans to work with students and faculty from the University of Alabama to locate all the graves of the nine Scottsboro Boys as Washington plans to erect historical markers on all their graves, the AP reported.
"They didn't know how much they meant in history while they were alive," Washington told the AP.
