How Does Harper Lee Use Racial Discrimination In To Kill A Mockingbird

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Prompt: The novel To Kill a Mockingbird is largely a story regarding race in the American South during the Great Depression. Using evidence from your various non-fiction readings and To Kill a Mockingbird, discuss how To Kill a Mockingbird represents the larger society of the American South at this time.

Lynching. Racism. Discrimination. To Kill A Mockingbird, a book based off of the racial biases of the American South in the time (1930s/Great Depression), shows them and their effects, like how the blacks in the courtroom have to sit in the balcony. Also, Tom Robinson was considered guilty in a white person versus a black person case, even though the evidence pointed to him being innocent. Another event that was going on was when a gang tries to take Tom Robinson away for lynching, but is stopped by Atticus and Scout. To Kill A Mockingbird shows the effects of racial discrimination in the American South at the time by showing racism towards blacks, allow automatic black guilt, and threats or violence made to blacks …show more content…

In To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee writes in that whites have their own church and the blacks have their own, and blacks have to sit in the balcony in the courtroom. Also, Bob Ewell and others like him thought blacks were incompetent and stupid, and that they aren’t as intelligent as whites. This connects to the real world by how, in the real world, public areas were segregated, such as schools or bus/train stations, often times with the “colored only” areas in worse condition than the “white only” areas. Also, people and groups like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) discriminated, killed, or threatened to kill blacks and people who stood for them like civil workers. Overall, the racial bias of whites toward blacks by how they are segregated and how whites abused blacks in To Kill A Mockingbird relates to the American South at the