Examples Of Racial Injustice In To Kill A Mockingbird

In the Bildungsroman novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, the author, Harper Lee, opens during the Great Depression. The novel explores the many themes of racial injustice throughout the book. In doing so, the novel vividly describes the impact of the economic crisis, and the racial discrimination exemplified by Jim Crow laws. Jim Crow laws began in the mid-to-late 1800s following the ratification of the 13th amendment and were used throughout the South as a legal way to put black citizens into indentured servitude, to take voting rights away and to control where they lived and how they traveled. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses characters such as Lula, Calpurnia, and Dolphus Raymond to emphasize the economic and social aspects of the novel

In Chapter 12, the reader learns to see a different aspect of Maycomb's social structure when Lula declares, “You ain't got no business bringin' white chillun here--they got their church, we got our'n”(158). Lula emphasizes this viewpoint to bring attention to the segregation and alienation of those of color. Lula foregrounds the tension between the white and black community when she contemptuously questions Calpurnia, "I wants to know why you bringin' white chillun to [n***er] church"(158). Lula does this to challenge the norm by expressing concern about white children, Scouts and Jem, attending “their” church service. The character Lula is used as a perspective for the reader to recognize and understand the black community's agony due to these unfair and unequal rights known as “Black Codes.” The Finch household’s black cook and mother figure, Calpurnia, greatly emphasizes the background of most black people during this time. Calpurnia's improper grammar such as “comp'ny,” “yo,” “better'n,” and “’em” is an indication of insufficient education (33). In this time period, those citizens of color had educational restrictions in contrast to white