Racism is an unneeded building block of society that prevents us from moving upward but instead continuously falling from our unsecure structure (McCabe #). Harper Lee incorporated factual historic events that took place as building blocks for her book To Kill a Mockingbird. Jim Crow, mob mentality, and racism were only a few of them. The first building block for the book was the incorporation of Jim Crow throughout the course of this novel. Jim Crow is an unspoken system of laws and rules that cast discrimination upon blacks for the color of their skin. People thought these rules were needed because they felt that the Negros were not equal to the whites and that they needed to be kept in line. Some of these laws …show more content…
The phenomena “mob mentality” occurs when an individual joins a group of people who in result, unite to become a whole. Mob mentality is when an individual’s mindset is changed because they become part of a group. It causes them to act differently then they normally would if they were by themselves. This phenomenon still occurs today. An example of todays current mob mentality is were people get together to riot on police brutality. These happen because people feel the white officers target Negro men. (Smith). This mentality has also been a part of the country’s past. An example of mob mentality in the country’s past events would be when a group of people got together and started the Boston Tea Party to rebel against taxes. Some actions that mobs might partake in biased of course on the current situation could be lynching. Lynching is where the mob would hang the person that they decidedly convicted by a tree out of anger, rage and overall mob mentality. The mob acted as though they were happy when they were committing the lynching and that what they were doing was right. They were out of control and needed to be stopped. The only problem is that the police that should have been stopping them were busy. They were busy helping the mob. The song Strange Fruit describes the seen of the mob using the fruit as symbolism for the Negro men that were hung. The mob in the Lynching …show more content…
This time period is the peek of race discrimination in the 1900s. Some of the reasons for the racist actions and events that take place are that the people discriminating feel low of them selves and crave nothing more than the feeling of being a priority in the eyes of others (Routledge). The Scottsboro trial is an event that occurred during the peak of discrimination and racism in the 1900s. It all began when two women charged out of the train as it arrived at their stop, and yelled, Rape! You see, the story behind the Scottsboro trial in the two woman’s point of view is utterly false. The truth is that these two women happened to be prostitutes that were trying to cross state lines. They figured that the best way to make it without being caught was to cause commotion to divert security’s attention away from them and onto the Negro men. The woman’s plan worked and security went right after the Negro men without a second thought. The Women made it across state lines, and in result the group of Negro men were falsely accused without any factual evidence. After the men were put in jail, the women were required to take a medical examination. The results of the examination showed no signs of rape or abuse, and it was later discovered that the Negro men were not even in the same train car. Though even with this evidence, the Negro men were convicted and resulted in one of the