--- description: Scottsboro Boy Haywood Patterson, now 37, was a free man again last week. Michigan Governor G. Mennen Williams refused to extradite him to Alabama, where Patterson and eight other Negroes were... title: SEQUELS: Free image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [U.S.](/section/us/) # SEQUELS: Free by [TIME](/author/time/) Jul 24, 1950 4:00 AM CUT by [TIME](/author/time/) Jul 24, 1950 4:00 AM CUT Scottsboro Boy Haywood Patterson, now 37, was a free man again last week. Michigan Governor G. Mennen Williams refused to extradite him to Alabama, where Patterson and eight other Negroes were arrested 17 years ago on a flimsy rape charge. After that, a federal judge dismissed a fugitive warrant against him for breaking out of an Alabama jail in 1948. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6615126/sequels-free/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6615126/sequels-free/"},"headline":"SEQUELS: Free","datePublished":"1950-07-24T04:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-26T05:43:00.429Z","description":"Scottsboro Boy Haywood Patterson, now 37, was a free man again last week. Michigan Governor G. Mennen Williams refused to extradite him to Alabama, where Patterson and eight other Negroes were...","url":"https://time.com/archive/6615126/sequels-free/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME","url":"https://time.com/author/time/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6615126/sequels-free/","name":"SEQUELS: Free"}}]}] ```