“You never really understand a person until you see things from his point of you… until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” In her powerful novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee tells a coming of age story of the young tomboy called Scout in the Southern town of Maycomb, and of the trial of Tom Robinson, a black man defending himself against a white jury when people of color could not even share the same bathrooms with a white person. It tells of the moral greyness of everyday people and how people who are supposed to be good can almost hang an innocent man, and how people who are supposed to be bad can grow flowers in pots on their windowsill. For me, it is the reminder of the complexity of people and of life, and that other people must be respected in the same way I want to be …show more content…
I did not know why Atticus did not win the trial, or why Bob Ewell attacked Scout and Jem. But in my sophomore year of high school, I understood what was happening as my class went through that book while riots were breaking out in Ferguson, Missouri. And as everything unfolded, I watched Atticus Finch almost as intently as Scout was, seeing his character bravely and calmly standing up for what was right. As he explained to Jem why he had sent him to read to Mrs. Dubose even though she was an angry and narrow-minded woman, I started to understand how people can become bitter and angry, and that it does no one any good for me to hate them because of it. While Atticus calmly stood between the lynch mob and Tom Robinson at midnight on a jailhouse porch, I learned that you must stand up for what you know to be right, even if everyone else thought you mad to do so. And when Atticus confidently told his case to the jury that he knew would convict Tom Robinson, I learned that courage is standing up to fear and hatred, even when you know that you are beaten when you