To Kill A Mockingbird Mob Mentality

In March of 1931 nine black boys were riding a train in Tennessee. A group of white boys who had also been on the train got off and told the police that the boys on the train had raped two white girls. When questioned the girls also said that they had been raped and all nine boys were arrested. Unlike Leonard Basey the Scottsboro Boys were given a trial. While they were given a trial it was definitely not a fair one.

I mentioned a few reasons on how the use of force has made police officers look bad. It is making officers look bad because recordings from the public only show the beatings and shootings, but do not capture the beginning of the confrontation. It will be bet for officers and the goof being of the community I officers use body-worn cameras because it will capture every second that happens between confrontations. The use of force is granted to the officers if they feel like the suspect is dangerous or is not complying with the officer. It was a right given to them by a case back in 1985, in which a person was killed by deadly force.

In that time, there were many heavy social standards and one of those standards was accepting Jim Crow. One example of one person not being able to combat Jim Crow due to the social pressure was in the book To Kill A Mockingbird. One of the characters, Dolphus Raymond, liked hanging out with black people and was friends with them. He knew that there was pressure against it, so he took the cowardly way out by pretending to be drunk as an excuse to hang out with them. The fictional character of Mr. Raymond is a great embodiment of the mental state of the silent few in America that knew that Jim Crow was wrong, but didn’t have the means or willpower to end it.

Tom was accused of raping a white woman who was Mayella Ewell, Mayella said he raped her while he was helping her with chores. She later on tells the readers that it was false allegations. The reason why she didn 't tell the truth at her first trial was because, Mayella was afraid of being embarrassed because she kissed a black male. She rather have an innocent man get charged with a crime than that. “However, Robinson was transferred from the state prison to Maycomb 's county jail on Saturday, two days before he stood trial on Monday, and Atticus had to defend him against a lynch mob”.

A stone throwing fight ensued. The black youths managed to push all but one white youth off the train. The white men went to the next city and reported an “assault by a gang of blacks.” When the train stopped at Paint Rock the nine black youths were arrested in Alabama and sent to jail to await their trials (Linder). The creator of the website”The trials of the Scottsboro Boys” said that there were two girls on the train near the boys these two white girls named Victoria Prince and Ruby Bates falsely accused the nine boys of rape. The girls said the boys had pistols and knives and chased them through different carts of the train and raped them(Linder).

The man he is defending is innocent of the charge of rape by a man named Bob Ewell’s daughter. Through testimony at the trial to the jury, the girl simply kissed had a black man. Also, during the trial Atticus shows to the jury that the girl appeared to have been beaten by someone who used their left hand and Tom could not use his left arm at all, the jury still found Tom guilty. Tom was killed later trying to escape but Bob Ewell, wanted revenge against Atticus for making what he thought was a fool of him in

In 1930s - 1940s, racial minorities such as the African- Americans were at a disadvantage in courts especially due to very little access of counsels. African- Americans were jailed because of judicial stereotypes of dangerousness or because they lack any financial help or resources.. The Scottsboro Case illustrates the discrimination against African Americans in the past clearly; nine teenage boys were accused of raping two white girls in 1932. The United States Supreme Court sentenced them to death. They fought against the ruling and asked for another trial with the appeal to their right to impart juries opinion; which did not do anything because all juries were all- white.

To Kill a Mockingbird: Historical Paper The Great Depression is often called a “defining moment” in the twentieth-century history of the United States says Gene Smiley. Harper Lee used real-life examples as inspiration when she was writing To Kill a Mockingbird. In this novel, there are multiple connections to the Jim Crow laws and mob mentality. The laws were operated during 1877 through the mid-1960s in the southern and border states. These laws were an official effort for keeping African Americans separate from Whites (“Jim Crow Laws”).

The Scottsboro Case is the case of nine African-American teenagers brought before the Court of Alabama on charges of rape in 1931. The case became a landmark in the struggle against racism and a fair trial. The court had all white juries. On March 25,1931, many people were trying to ride the train traveling between Chattanooga and Memphis,Tennessee. Many white teenagers jumped off the train to tell the sheriff that they had been attacked by a group of black teenagers.

Both girls came from poverty-stricken families (Sorensen 10). Bates spoke with the sheriff after she exited the train and accused nine black men of raping her and her friend, Victoria Price. During that time period in the South, an accusation of rape would have almost always led to the death penalty. It was also common for blacks who were accused of rape to be hanged before even going to trial (Aretha 15-16). The trials of the Scottsboro Boys are a key piece of history of the United States legal system because “No crime in