Haywood Patterson

Biography

Haywood Patterson (December 12, 1912 – August 24, 1952) was an American author and one of the Scottsboro Boys. He was accused of raping Victoria Price and Ruby Bates. He wrote a book about his experience, Scottsboro Boy. Patterson was 18 when he and eight other young black men and boys were accused of raping a white woman and a 17-year-old white girl on a train in 1931. Patterson was given the death sentence three times, but after appeals and retrials he was eventually sentenced to 75 years in prison. At his trials, Patterson falsely accused all but three of his codefendants of committing the rapes before retracting his testimony. At Atmore Prison Farm, Patterson admitted to becoming a sexual predator to deter fellow inmates from attacking him. He kept a "gal-boy" and once attacked a fellow inmate with a knife for having sex with "his kid".

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