To Kill A Mockingbird Race Quotes

Race used to affect every aspect of life, especially for people of color, from the way you talked to where you were able to sit. The novel, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee has many examples of this. It takes place in a fictional part of Alabama called Maycomb County, during the Great depression. The main character and narrator is a girl named Jean Louise Finch, but most people call her Scout. She has an older brother named Jem and a father named Atticus. Her father is a lawyer and he is defending a man of color named Tom Robinson, that is being accused of raping a white woman named Mayella Ewell. Maycomb is greatly divided by race and there is a set of unwritten racial rules that apply to everyone, causing some to even have a double life,

Atticus was talking to Scout’s aunt, Alexandra about a man named Braxton Underwood and Calpurnia happened to be in the room. When she left Alexandra told Atticus,”Don’t talk like that in front of them.” “Talk like what in front of whom?” he asked. “Like that in front of Calpurnia. You said Braxton Underwood despises Negroes right in front of her.” … “I don’t think it’s a good habit, Atticus. It encourages them. You know how they talk among themselves, everything that happens in this town’s out to the quarters before sundown.” (157) This shows that people in Maycomb chose to not say certain things with a colored person present because they believe that all colored people like gossiping amongst each other and anything you say in front of them will be known by all of them. This is also another example of how the race of those on around them affect what the characters say and this is a terrible mindset. You shouldn’t make assumptions about people, especially because of their race. A lawyer called Mr. Gilmer asked Tom Robinson during his trial,”Had your eye on her [Mayella] a long time, hadn 't you boy?” “No suh I never looked at her.” … “Why were you so anxious to do that woman 's chores?” Tom Robinson hesitated, searching for an answer. “Looked like she didn 't have nobody to help her, like I says-” “With Mr. Ewell and seven children on the place, boy?” “Well, I says it looked like the never help her none-”... “Yes, suh. I felt right sorry for her, she

Atticus said to Jem and Scout,”As you grow older, you 'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don 't you forget it-whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash.” … “There 's nothing more sickening than a low-grade white man who’ll take advantage of a Negro 's ignorance.” (220-221) This shows that the author is disgusted by white people who are willing to try and take advantage of a colored person and this part of the novel is meant to convey that message to the reader. This was probably a big deal when this book was published considering that colored people and white people had to have everything from drinking fountains to schools segregated. Atticus says during Tom’s trial,”And so a quiet, respectable, humble, Negro who had that unmitigated temerity to ‘feel sorry’ for a white woman has had to put his word against two white people’s. I need not remind you of their appearance and conduct on the stand-you saw them for yourselves. The witnesses for the state, with the exception of the sheriff of Maycomb County, have presented themselves to you gentlemen, to the court, in the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted, confident that you can tell me where to go