How To Kill A Mockingbird And Racism In The 1900's

In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, the famous father named Atticus says “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb into his skin and walk around in it (Judith 2).  This quote is said during a time of intense racism. “Not long after Obama took office, the National Urban League released its 2009 State of Black America report. The findings showed that racial inequities continued in employment, housing, health care, education, criminal justice, and other areas” (Buckley 1).  This essay will primarily focus on the criminal justice area of this when discussing the Scottsboro trials and comparing the trials to the famous novel To Kill a Mockingbird.  In some schools, To Kill a Mockingbird is mandatory for students to read (“Harper Lee dies at 89: A quiet life, a lasting legacy-- see the photos” 2) however, in others it is banned.  Jon Stewart said there is a “gaping racial wound that will not heal, yet we pretend doesn’t exist” (Judith 2). There are similarities between the famous Scottsboro Trials and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.

Racism Come to humans naturally we all judge our surroundings and the people living in it which means our opinions are based our views and values. The values gradually leads us to be biased towards some people. The novel To Kill Mockingbird by Harper Lee and the article “Jim Crow Policing” by Bob Herbert both inform readers about the life of colored folks now and during the great depression. They also both inform the readers how no one cared about the way they treated colored people or if they were hurting their feelings. Racism can either be embedded in a man’s heart or can be enforced by law.

Racism has been around for a very long time. Racism can affect people in many different ways. People are very racist against certain groups of people such as African American and Muslims.Toms trial is another example in To Kill A Mockingbird of the racism. Racism still exists in this world today and hopefully it will continue to get better.

American history is a sad and bloody history with many bumps that have created it into the superpower it is today. This hardship from our history played a crucial part in many books and especially To Kill A Mockingbird. Harper Lee created a writing masterpiece by using real life events as well as using real life corrupted laws. Connections like the Jim Crow laws, the mob mentality, and issues of racism that were taking place in that time.

The writer, Harper Lee, in chapter 9 of her novel To Kill a Mockingbird conveys social racism. For example, when Atticus tells Scout how lawyers have black clients but not all lawyers try to do a good job at defending the black person.

How is the racial problem of the southern states of USA in the 1930s portrayed in To Kill a Mockingbird?

In the classical 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee depicts the social and racial inequality in southern American society during the 1930’s. Residing in Maycomb County, Atticus Finch and his two children, Scout and Jem, gain appreciation for tolerance as they encounter diverse characters such as Tom Robinson and Boo Radley. Told from Scout’s perspective of their adventures, Jem and Scout explore the prejudicial flaws of their community. The portrayal of a catalyst and prophet matches the personality of Jeremy “Jem” Atticus Finch; serving as the brother and friend of his sister Scout, Jem’s once innocent and naive world view is exposed to the less savory aspects of southern culture when his father takes on a case defending an African American man accused of rape. As the dehumanizing factors of institutionalized and widespread racial discrimination and prejudice become evident, Jem learns that empathy and human understanding are crucial in realizing full human potential.

Although the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, took place in the 1930s, it ties closely into the Civil Rights Movement. This novel displayed the obvious superiority whites had over blacks. It took place during a time when colored people faced discrimination, prejudice, and racism. When the book was published in the 1960s, it made whites furious, resulting in a lot of controversy. Harper Lee had a goal when writing, she wanted to show the relation between actual events that happened during the civil rights and incorporate it into her own novel to show how cruel colored people were treated, specifically when whites accused blacks of doing sinful acts.

Race has always been a part of history, from slavery to MLK, to Barack Obama. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee defines race in the south during the 1930’s. Jean “Scout” Finch, is the narrator of the story. Her brother Jeremy “Jem” and her dad, Atticus, are both main characters. Calpurnia is their house cook and helper, she is also black. Tom Robinson is a black man who is wrongfully convicted of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell. This novel goes through Scout's life from when she was 6, till she is 9. She lives in the town of Maycomb Alabama, and lives an innocent life until about halfway through the story, where she begins to ask questions. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Scout shows the readers that racial inequality creates an unjust society through the African American community, through the people surrounding colored folks, and through Tom Robinson’s Case.

The content of the book called To kill the mockingbird by Harper Lee is including racism of black people, such as Tom Robinson trial. Middle of the Great Depression, this book was published by Harper Lee’s background since he was young. The book was written about growing period of a young girl and racism. Those concepts are all tied up to inform how good and evil and co-exist. This book published 1930’s, which influenced variety of racisms before that time period such as Ku Klux Klan and Jews massacre. This paper will talk about which events were happened before this book published.

Literature is a precious art form to many and important for various reasons. Literacy helps improve grammar, provides entertainment, educates people and provides inspiration. It is specifically useful for educating people on racial discrimination as many classic works contain racism. Both To Kill a Mockingbird and The Butler are great at expanding people’s knowledge on racism. Although they have two entirely different plots, they both depict how little people value an African-American’s opinion, characters challenging racism and the acceptance of blatant racism.

What if the world was still the same as it was back during the great depression. What if this was the truth. In To Kill a Mockingbird readers can see how prejudice affected people of color back then, and how it’s not so different from today. In the novel readers will find unfairness in court, hate crimes, and segregation. Today readers can still find these same issues, but in different forms. Prejudice towards race has changed very little from back then to now.

Racism can be defined as a major problem in United States history, and can be dated back to the 1400’s. Racism can be viewed and defined in many ways, but most accurately is seen as the state of characterizing an individual based on his race, and or believing that one race is superior to another (Shah) . Racism is as big of a problem in the USA as anyone can think, starting way back to when the country had just began to form, when Europeans started settling into the 13 original colonies (Shah). Ever since then, it seems that the problem has only been on the rise, rather than the opposite. Racism has always been a major issue, although hundreds of years have passed since the birth of racism, the problem just seems to never go away.

How did the time period of the novel (30’s) affect how black people were treated?