Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird to describe her life experiences through the great depression. In the book she connects the Jim Crow laws with mob mentality, and racism. The connection to America’s history is how Jim Crow is used in the novel.
Jim Crow was a set of laws to ensure that whites were superior to blacks. Some people thought the laws were needed because the whites thought the blacks were going to take their jobs. A few examples of this are excluding blacks from bathrooms, transport, and education. If the rules were not followed they could be lynched in public (Pilgrim). The picture is an amazing representation of the Jim Crow laws because it shows a poor black guy in front of animals (V.). The townspeople of Lee’s fictional town in Maycomb, Alabama abides by the Jim Crow laws.
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Jim Crow was a set of laws to enforce the superiority of whites to blacks. The Jim Crow laws were needed because people thought that blacks are of a lesser human. A few examples of these laws include illegal marriage of blacks and whites, bathrooms, and drinking fountains. A white person had been always superior. Some punishments for blacks not following the laws include lynching, torture, and death (Pilgrim). The picture showed racism because it compared black people to animals (V.). The townspeople of Maycomb abide by the laws. In Lee’s fictional town a black man named Tom Robinson is accused of raping and beating Mayella Ewell. He was found guilty. Another example of racism in the book is Calpurnia taking the kids to her church one weekend. Lula told Calpurnia to take her white kids to their own church (Lee 158). The book does not just include the Jim Crow, but it also includes mob mentality. Lee also shows the issue of mob