While the topic is quite serious the fact that this subject has been made into a musical seemed odd at first. However, if you are patient, you will under stand why this story is presented as a musical. There has been an uproar in some circles about the wearing of black face but those protesters are "missing the forest for the trees." This is not a play about minstrels but about how Jim Crow placed these males of African descent in a living unending nightmare. The play makes it clear that every one but the Scottsboro boys are the buffoons !