Similarities Between To Kill A Mockingbird And The Scottsboro Trial

Caitlyn Crafts

Barkes/Miller

English 9B-4

14th February 2023

Most Writers will reference and use real-life events in their stories, whether a quick reference to an entire novel is based around a said event, writers will use this to hook a reader in and get them to reflect on their own life when reading. In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the infamous Scottsboro Boys' trials play a massive part in To Kill A Mockingbird and the existence of this trial helps play into the racism and unfairness of the trial in Harper's novel. The Scottsboro trail is about nine black boys being accused of rape by two white women, Ruby Bates and Victoria Price. Despite the accusation, there was no evidence that any of the boys had actually committed

First, the two trials both include racial prejudice toward the black men accused of rape. In the novel, Scout the main character noticed how cruelly people were treating Tom but also how cruelly they treated her father Atticus who was defending Tom in the trial. Confused, this prompted Scout to ask her father about a quote she had heard earlier, she asked “Then why did Cecil say you defended (n-word) (79) (Harper),” she had heard people say this in an incredibly hostile tone leading Scout to think what her dad was doing as a bad thing, this is due to the towns racist behavior to the black people and them thinking that Atticus defending Tom was him “switching sides” in a way. In the real trial, the boys were thrown in jail only on accusations due to them being black, while they were in jail the word got around that nine black men raped two white women, and this prompted the southern town with the jail to go to the jail in a mob and threaten the boys with death threats. This was all before the boys even went to trial and it was all on the word of two white women, everything the woman had said was believed as those accused were all

One of the first big things a reader notices that is different between these two trials is the role the father plays in To Kill A Mockingbird and the lack of family shown from both the boys, Ruby, and Victoria in the real trial. In To Kill A Mockingbird, the father of Mayella plays a huge role in not just the trial but the story itself. The father of Mayella Ewell, Bob Ewell is the main reason for Tom being accused and prosecuted in the first place, as he was the one who abused Mayella and used Tom as a way out. Bob is first brought up by the statement “Are you the father of Mayella Ewell?” (174) (Harper),” and he continues to play a large role throughout the rest of the novel. In the real-life trial, the family of both parties does not really play any sort of role in the trial. The only thing to note is that the families of the boys scrapped enough money together by hiring a financial adviser to defend the boys as they were too poor to hire a real lawyer (Scottsboro—An American Tragedy ). Despite the huge role the father of Mayella played in the novel, no part of the families of the Scottsboro boys or the families of Ruby and Victoria played any significant part in the real