How Is Atticus Finch Accused

In his closing statement, Atticus says the witnesses “have presented themselves to you gentlemen...confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption—the evil assumption—that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption one associates with minds of their caliber.” In the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, there are a lot of people who take a stand for others. Atticus Finch is the father of Scout-the narrator- and Jem Finch. In the story, Atticus, who is a lawyer, is chosen to defend Tom Robinson, a black man who has been accused of rape. Being in a southern state in the early 1900s, most people did not like Tom, and were biased

In Chapter 9, When Scout was asking Atticus about the case, Atticus says “I’m simply defending a Negro—his name’s Tom Robinson. He lives in that little settlement beyond the town dump. He’s a member of Calpurnia’s church, and Cal knows his family well. She says they’re clean-living folks”(Lee, 100). Calpurnia, The Finches’ cook and maid, is thought of as a member of the family. Atticus says she knows the Robinsons, and saying that they're clean living folks shows how nice they seem. Later, at the trial, Scout, Jem and Dill were listening to Tom testify. Scout thought “Atticus sometimes said that one way to tell whether a witness was lying or telling the truth was to listen rather than watch: I applied his test—Tom denied it three times in one breath, but quietly, with no hint of whining in his voice, and I found myself believing him in spite of his protesting too much. He seemed to be a respectable Negro, and a respectable Negro would never go up into somebody’s yard of his own volition”(Lee, 257). It seemed that Tom was really telling the truth, and using a strategy Scout’s father taught her, Scout could hear in his voice that Tom was telling the truth. She thought he was a good man, and Atticus has taught his children to see the good in everyone. After Atticus questions Tom, Mr. Link Deas, a man in the audience, stands up and says “I just want the whole lot of you to know one

He didn’t want them to think the town’s racist attitude was right. In Chapter 9, Scout asks Atticus why he’s defending Tom. “‘For a number of reasons,’ said Atticus. ’The main one is, if I didn’t, I couldn’t hold up my head in town, I couldn’t represent this county in the legislature, I couldn’t even tell you or Jem not to do something again’”(Lee, 100). Atticus is an honest man, and a good lawyer. What Atticus is saying is that he couldn’t just leave behind someone, especially someone he thought was a good man, just because of talk around town and the unlikely chance of winning. He didn’t want his children thinking that was right. Later in that conversation, Atticus says “Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win”(Lee, 101). This quote means that just because the whole town is against African Americans, and will probably not stand by a black man, Atticus will not stop at least trying to do what he believes is right, and will stand up for Tom the whole way through. Then, Scout listens in on a conversation between Atticus and her Uncle Jack Atticus says “I hope and pray I can get Jem and Scout through it without bitterness, and most of all, without catching Maycomb’s usual disease. Why otherwise reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I don’t pretend to