Place students into two groups and assign each group to read one of two Supreme Court decisions regarding the Scottsboro defendants–Powell v. Alabama in 1932 and Norris v. Alabama from 1935. Students should work together and use the OPCVL protocol to analyze the source.

Have a representative from each group share a summary of the group’s discussion. Have a discussion using the following questions to compare and contrast the two Supreme Court decisions and their implications for Black Americans.

• How are the decisions similar? How are they different? 
• Does anything strike you as unexpected? 
• How do each of the decisions in these cases represent a legal advance for Black Americans?

Finally, have students write an individual reflection to the following prompt:

• To what extent did Black Americans achieve legal accountability for structural racism during Jim Crow? Use evidence from the court decisions in your response.