Examples Of Jim Crow Laws In To Kill A Mockingbird

In the United States racism played a major part in our nation’s history from slavery to severe oppression. About 388,000 Africans were shipped to North America; imagine being one of those people, taken from your home never to see it again (Gates, Henry, Jr, How Many Slaves Landed in the U.S.). Harper Lee uses events from our history as inspiration for the book she wrote To Kill a Mockingbird. There are connections from United States history in her book with the Jim Crow Laws, mob mentality, and issues of racism within that time period. To start with, the Jim Crow Laws appeared several times within the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. The Jim Crow Laws were laws made to keep blacks in lower positions in society (Pilgrim). A few examples of the

If the laws we not followed, the punishments ranged from arrests to lynchings (Pilgrim). There were extremes punishments as well from being “burned at the stake” and “beaten with clubs” (Pilgrim). There were also large mobs that would destroy entire black neighborhoods, and kill large amounts of the people living there putting them on the streets (Pilgrim). The Jim Crow picture is a representation of this because the picture depicts a wild looking man with tattered and threadbare clothes (V). The tattered clothes represent this because due to mobs and Jim Crow Law punishments, numerous blacks ended up on the streets and could not afford new clothes (V). The first connection to United States history, is that the Jim Crow laws make several appearances throughout the book, To Kill a Mockingbird. The first example from the book is when Miss Gates claims, “it’s time somebody taught ‘em a lesson, they were gettin’ way above themselves, an’ the next thing they think they can do is marry us” (Lee 331). This demonstrates the Jim Crow

Mob mentality is following others mindlessly, and do what the crowd does regardless if the activity is right or wrong (Smith). Mob mentality is also large groups of people doing violent actions that they would never do alone. People join in because if everyone is doing it, it must be ok (Smith). Mob mentality is demonstrated in today’s events as well, for example, Black Friday shoppers rush everywhere trying to get the hottest deals, and some of these shoppers have few limits to what they will do to get these deals (Smith). Some people get hurt and even trampled as people rush to and from places (Smith). Mob mentality also appears in our past, one example is when three black men were suspects in the shooting of a white man, the crowds broke into a jail cell and took the men and hung two of them (“Strange Fruit. Anniversary of a Lynching). This demonstrates mob mentality because people started to lynch these black men, and not everyone knew what was going on at the time they just joined in and followed the crowd (“Strange Fruit. Anniversary of a Lynching). A photo taken at taken at the lynching shows two black men hanging from a tree, and there were large crowds of people specting below, even women, one who was pregnant (Beitler). In Harper Lee’s book, the citizens of Maycomb experience mob mentality. One example is, when a crowd forms outside Atticus’s house (Lee 193-195). This shows mob mentality because most if not all