Tom Robinson Trial To Kill A Mockingbird

Racism is an issue America has had difficulty solving for quite some time now. While its influence in the present day is significantly reduced, it still has its presence even then. For as long as African Americans have been in America, racism has had a gloomy presence in its society, and To Kill A Mockingbird reflected and challenged a system of racism back in its time, especially towards its black community. To Kill A Mockingbird mirrored its racism to its real-life counterpart and used a character to demonstrate how this was wrong. Despite the dangers of having such ideas during a volatile time period, Harper Lee decided to add a character like Atticus Finch and even portrayed characters against this idea with statements such as “Not only a Finch waiting on tables but one in the courthouse lawing for niggers! Your father’s no better than the niggers and trash he works for!”(Lee 135) Another tactic for talking about racism without preaching ideals was the trial of Tom Robinson, especially its results, “A jury never looks at a defendant it has convicted, and when this jury came in, not one of them looked at Tom Robinson.” (Lee 282) Throughout the trial, the readers learn about Tom Robinson’s

One example is the comparison between the time it took to convict Tom Robinson to that of a normal criminal when Scout comments, “Ain’t it a long time? Sure is, Scout. Well, from the way you put it, it’d just take five minutes.”(Lee 281) Another example is the decision to have Scout, Jem, and Dill watch the trial from the colored balcony. Despite them being white children, they choose to sit up with the colored people, claiming “...And steered us gently through the black people in the balcony.” (Lee 219) In that day and age, this was an action that was unheard of. For Harper Lee to include such a detail was dangerous during this time