Shelia Washington (1960–2021), museum founder who helped exonerate the Scottsboro Boys
Shelia Washington was instrumental in the exoneration of the Scottsboro Boys, nine young Black men who were wrongfully convicted of raping two white women in a famous 1935 case.The Scottsboro Boys – Haywood Patterson, Clarence Norris, Charlie Weems, Andy Wright, Roy Wright, Olin Montgomery, Ozie Powell, Willie Roberson, and Eugene Williams – were riding on a freight train through Tennessee when a white mob tried to force them from the train and later accused them of raping two white women. When their case was heard in Scottsboro, Alabama, eight of the young men were convicted and sentenced to death.