Scottsboro Boys Trial

Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird transports readers to Maycomb, a small town in Alabama during the great depression. Lee drew the inspiration for this story from the Scottsboro Boys Trial. The trial consisted of a group of black boys being sentenced to death on the accusation of rape by a white women, however all the boys were innocent. Moved by the injustice of the trail, Lee centered To Kill a Mockingbird around the theme of killing innocence. Throughout the book Lee repeatedly conveys innocence through a Mockingbird. A character in the novel even states that it is a sin to kill a Mockingbird because they bring no harm, only music. Lee goes beyond the Mockingbird itself and also uses characters from the story to convey innocence.

To begin, Lee uses Tom Robinson to embody the innocence of a mockingbird. Tom Robinson is a black man who lives in Maycomb. Unfortunately, because of his skin tone he is seen as less of a man than the white residents of Maycomb. Parallel to the Scottsboro boys Tom is accused of raping a white woman, named Mayella Ewell. During Tom's trial, Tom's lawyer Atticus tells Mayella to point to the man who raped her. Harper Lee describes, “His left arm was a full twelve inches shorter than his right, and hung dead at his side. It ended in a small shriveled hand… it was no use to him.”(Lee 248). This quote shows Tom is a cripple, thus he was physically incapable of taking advantage of Mayella. Therefore, Tom is innocent of the crime

Boo Radley is Scout's neighbor, Scout, Jem, and Dill continually mess with Boo throughout the novel. When Boo was younger generation was arrested for disorderly conduct and disrupting the town. As punishment Boo’s very religious dad locked him in the house for the next 15 years. Rumors began to circulate because Boo was never seen. Jem describes, “he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch, that's why his hands were bloodstained… what teeth he had were yellow and rotten; his eyes popped” (Lee 16). This quote creates a picture of a mean terrible monster named Boo Radley, from a child who doesn't know him. None of the town knew Boo Radley, yet they continued to create stories revolving around how terrible he is. One town's woman even claimed he peeks in her windows at night. Even though Boo was constantly being manipulated into a monster, he ultimately proved himself to the Finch family. The night Scout was attacked the sheriff and Atticus work together to piece together the events of that night. They concluded that Boo Radley was the one who rushed in and saved the Finch children. When scout is recounting the events of the last few years of your life she notes, “Boo was car neighbor. He gave us soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of goodluck pennies and our lives.” (Lee 373). This quote shows that Boo is a hero that saved the Finch children, and not the terrible human everyone made