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To Kill A Mockingbird Real Life Events

1470 Words6 Pages

Many books mirror real-life events and show readers the true impact they can have on people's lives. Harper Lee’s book, To Kill A Mockingbird, demonstrates how books can spread awareness of dangerous ideas when presented in real-life situations. This book is one example of how many books can spotlight historical events to better inform readers of the impact on society. The message behind the story in To Kill A Mockingbird shows the true nature of many events throughout history and how people have used messages in books to protest against them.

One of many historical events that influenced Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird was the 1931 trial of the Scottsboro Boys. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee creates a court case based around a black man …show more content…

Jim Crow laws were laws that Targeted African Americans and tried to incriminate them more based on random stuff. These laws are made by Southern lawmakers to try to undermine African Americans in the legal system. Harper Lee used the Jim Crow laws to show how separated the town of Maycomb, Alabama was when it came to matters of race. Before Jim Crow laws came to an end in 1935, many in the South had very bigoted ideas behind instating the laws. According to Ferris State University, “The Jim Crow system was undergirded by the following beliefs or rationalizations: whites were superior to blacks in all important ways” (Pilgrim). Before the Civil Rights movement in the South, many believed that African-Americans were inferior to whites in almost every aspect. While this is not true, it was the predominant belief. Jim Crow laws highlighted this belief for many years, as they made the legal and justice system solely target African-Americans and made it nearly impossible for them to be acquitted. Jim Crow laws allowed false accusations against African Americans to flourish, which is shown in To Kill A Mockingbird. In the book, the court case revolves around a black man who is accused of trying to rape a white woman. This man was falsely accused but because of discriminatory laws and beliefs during this time the man was prosecuted. To Kill a Mockingbird reflects on Jim Crow laws within the fictional court case To show that there was a problem with an illegal system. One example can be seen as stated by Ferris State University, “ a black male could not offer his hand or any other part of his body to a white woman, because he risked being accused of rape” (Pilgrim). Laws like this make it impossible for some African Americans to lead normal lives. These laws discriminate against African Americans making it nearly impossible for them to go

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Leading up to the Civil Rights Movement, the black community was in a constant battle against law enforcement treating them unfair compared to the white community. The Scottsboro Boys and Emmett Till’s cases were one of the many times that the legal system showed to be unfair to blacks. In the book To Kill A Mockingbird, the law enforcement and community were very racist against blacks and believed all blacks were criminals. In the story, Atticus Finch, who is a lawyer gets put into a very difficult situation and decides to defend a black man, who went by the name of Tom Robinson.

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Likewise Trials Throughout the 1930’s, many accusations of rape were made against black males and brought up in court by white females. The Scottsboro Boys case (1931) and Tom Robinson’s case, from To Kill A Mockingbird, both represent how many of these cases played out. The Scottsboro Boys and Tom Robinson compare due to unfair trials and accusations held against them.

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How Did Jim Crow Laws Affect Southern Politics

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Jim Crow laws were southern laws put in place after the passing of the emancipation proclamation which freed the slaves in an attempt to maintain the racist structure in their society. These laws impacted Black Americans by discriminating against them using segregation, restricting voting rights, and limiting educational resources in order to create a society that made it hard for them to succeed. One of the main ways that Jim Crow laws controlled southern politics was by suppressing the black vote by creating an unfair system for them which made it almost impossible for them to represent themselves politically. As we see in The American Yawp “from roughly 1890 to 1908, southern states implemented de jure, or legal, disfranchisement.

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One of the main themes of To Kill a Mockingbird is equity. The novel presents a case of racial injustice and demonstrates how it is unfair for individuals to be judged based on their race. In the book, Tom Robinson, a black man, is accused of rape, and despite the lack of evidence, he is found guilty simply because of his race. This is evident in the following quote: "There's something in our world that makes men lose their heads—they couldn't be fair if they tried. In our courts, when it's a white man's word against a black man's, the white man always wins" (Lee 220).

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The book “To Kill a Mockingbird” written by Harper Lee and the article “Scottsboro Boys Trial” both contain controversial court cases. For “To Kill a Mockingbird” a black man named Tom Robinson was accused of raping a white woman named Mayella Ewell. In the “Scottsboro Boys Trial” nine young black men and teenagers are accused of raping two white women named Victoria Price and Ruby Bates. Both cases transpired in the 1930s in Alabama. This is bad for the accused as racism was at an all-time in the 1930s especially in the deep south.

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1657 Words | 7 Pages

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