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Society In The 1930's To Kill A Mockingbird

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In the 1930’s there were many horrible things that went on. Harper Lee wanted people to be more aware of that so there are many things in To Kill a Mockingbird that were inspired by the 1930’s. This made the book more realistic and helped people really understand what it was like and how much society has to change. Some examples of horrible things that occured would be the Scottsboro trial, the Jim Crow laws, and the racial tensions. At these times people believed that white people were better than black and that black people are untrustworthy and below everyone else. Harper Lee was inspired to write To Kill a Mockingbird by all of the unspeakable events that happened in the 1930’s including racial tensions, Jim Crow laws, and the Scottsboro …show more content…

These laws existed in order to tell the African Americans what they could and could not do. People believed that even God believed in their segregation and that black people were born to be servants to the whites. People believed that black people were cursed but the white people were blessed. “Under Jim Crow, African Americans were relegated to the status of second class citizens”(What was Jim Crow). Some of the Jim Crow laws include: a black man cannot shake hands with a white man since this shows social equality, white motorists have the right-of-way at any intersection, and never dispute dishonorable intentions with a white person. The article lists many more horrible laws that black people were expected to follow just to show that white people are better than them. These laws inspired Harper Lee since these laws also showed how hard black people had it and what they had to go through. This shows how they they were looked down upon and how in a trial people would always side with the white person since they are not cursed like the black person. Another tie between these laws and the book is that Tom Robinson broke one of these laws. One law states that a black person should never imply that a white person is lying, well the trial is about how Tom Robinson is stating that Mayella is lying about him raping her. These laws show how horrible the black people were treated and this inspired Harper Lee to write To Kill a

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