“Breadlines and debt” are two words that set the tone for the desperation and other feelings common among many people at the time of the Great Depression. This rough, dreadful feeling provides the backdrop for To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, a story about the daughter of a lawyer in a small Alabama town that faces internal hardship and conflict; a conflict in which her father is in knee-deep. The author, Harper Lee, used many connections to actual historical events and concepts to build and enrich the story. In particular, there were many connections to the Jim Crow laws, mob mentality, and the Scottsboro Trials within the novel. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the Jim Crow laws played a major role in the plot of the book. The
…show more content…
In general, mob mentality is a term used to refer to the behavior that people resort to when in a large, angry, emotional group (Smith). Molly Edmonds states in her article “How Riots Work” that all it takes is a sizable crowd of people who feel passionately about something, and one small act of violence perpetrated by one person can cause the rest of the group to riot and turn into a mob. Furthermore, Edmonds believes that such behaviors emerge specifically because people are in a large group. Therefore, the amount of people present in the mob multiplies the mob’s power. Conversely, the members of the mob share the accountability and responsibility for their actions (Edmonds). In addition, mobs tend to have solidarity, or something in common, such as a favorite sports team, a desire for rights such as higher wages, et cetera (Edmonds). Furthermore, mob mentality does not just show up in mobs; that is more of a worst case scenario. For example, shoppers’ buying sprees on Black Friday may implicate mob mentality (Smith). Any sort of wild, rampant group action probably has a mob mentality as the root factor. To Kill a Mockingbird displayed a few key events in which mob mentality was a key element. Unfortunately, mob mentality, as shown in a famous photo by Lawrence Beitler, often applied to the lynching of many African Americans in …show more content…
For the most part, the Scottsboro Trials were a series of trials for a group of African American teens who apparently raped two white women who were in a train car with them, riding from Tennessee to Alabama (Johnson). On the train ride, an altercation broke out between some white men and the “Scottsboro Boys” (the name eventually given to the teens). Eventually, a posse stopped the train, and when the people stepped off, it was clear that there were a few white men, the Scottsboro Boys, and two white women left on the train (Anderson). The white women postulated that the black boys had raped them. Eventually, the juries convicted the boys, despite substantial amounts of evidence to the contrary (Anderson). Specifically, there were witnesses’ accounts that showed that the Scottsboro Boys were not even in the same train car as the women, medical evidence which showed that there were no indicators of rape on the women, and reports that the women were in fact known prostitutes, which means they faced charges for crossing state lines for immoral purposes under the Mann Act (Johnson). Furthermore, one of the women even retracted her statement (Anderson). Fortunately, the defense repeatedly appealed the case, and the Supreme Court ruled that the counsel for the defense was incompetent (Johnson). Consequently, the
In general, mob mentality is a term used to refer to the behavior that people resort to when in a large, angry, emotional group (Smith). Molly Edmonds states in her article “How Riots Work” that all it takes is a sizable crowd of people who feel passionately about something, and one small act of violence perpetrated by one person can cause the rest of the group to riot and turn into a mob. Furthermore, Edmonds believes that such behaviors emerge specifically because people are in a large group. Therefore, the amount of people present in the mob multiplies the mob’s power. Conversely, the members of the mob share the accountability and responsibility for their actions (Edmonds). In addition, mobs tend to have solidarity, or something in common, such as a favorite sports team, a desire for rights such as higher wages, et cetera (Edmonds). Furthermore, mob mentality does not just show up in mobs; that is more of a worst case scenario. For example, shoppers’ buying sprees on Black Friday may implicate mob mentality (Smith). Any sort of wild, rampant group action probably has a mob mentality as the root factor. To Kill a Mockingbird displayed a few key events in which mob mentality was a key element. Unfortunately, mob mentality, as shown in a famous photo by Lawrence Beitler, often applied to the lynching of many African Americans in …show more content…
For the most part, the Scottsboro Trials were a series of trials for a group of African American teens who apparently raped two white women who were in a train car with them, riding from Tennessee to Alabama (Johnson). On the train ride, an altercation broke out between some white men and the “Scottsboro Boys” (the name eventually given to the teens). Eventually, a posse stopped the train, and when the people stepped off, it was clear that there were a few white men, the Scottsboro Boys, and two white women left on the train (Anderson). The white women postulated that the black boys had raped them. Eventually, the juries convicted the boys, despite substantial amounts of evidence to the contrary (Anderson). Specifically, there were witnesses’ accounts that showed that the Scottsboro Boys were not even in the same train car as the women, medical evidence which showed that there were no indicators of rape on the women, and reports that the women were in fact known prostitutes, which means they faced charges for crossing state lines for immoral purposes under the Mann Act (Johnson). Furthermore, one of the women even retracted her statement (Anderson). Fortunately, the defense repeatedly appealed the case, and the Supreme Court ruled that the counsel for the defense was incompetent (Johnson). Consequently, the