Compare And Contrast To Kill A Mockingbird And The Scottsboro Boys

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Racism in the 1930’s was at its peak in its intensity, and in a courtroom, it was bound to affect the final verdict whether the accused was Black or white. Whites were favored and Blacks were usually the ones blamed for actions of white people, and this is what happened in both, Tom Robinson’s case in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and The Scottsboro Boys trials. To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel meant to represent The Scottsboro Boys case in a way that young adults can easily understand. The judges and lawyers of both cases were similar because they all oversaw a case that they knew had very little chance of winning, and their alleged victims are comparable as well.

Both trials took place in the 1930’s. In the Scottsboro Boys case, nine
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Judge Taylor was “…amiable, white-haired, slightly ruddy-faced…” (220). Judge Taylor was a judge in Alabama and was appointed to Tom Robinson’s case in To Kill a Mockingbird. He took the case knowing it’d be difficult to oversee a case with a high level of seriousness. Likewise, Judge Horton, from Alabama, appointed to The Scottsboro Boys case, did pretty much the same thing. “If the tale of the Scottsboro Boys can be said to have heroes, there is no person more deserving of the label than James E. Horton, the judge who presided over Haywood Patterson 's second trial in Decatur.”(…) They were both examples of courage, and they’re considered historical heroes. They were on the side of equality and fair treatment, claiming that it should be a fair trial for both Blacks and whites. In the end, they both supported the Blacks, being that there was much contradicting evidence from the young …show more content…
Victoria Price was the accuser of The Scottsboro Boys, and Mayella Ewell, the accuser of Tom Robinson. They are peculiarly congruent. These white young ladies were from poor backgrounds. In To Kill a Mockingbird we see that the Ewells are a very unstable family. They have no money no education and no breeding. The fact that they are white, is the only advantage they have in society, and sadly, it is enough to win over the jury in the trial. ”Took me a slap a year to save seb’m nickels, but I done it” (Lee 258). Victoria Price was a “spinner at the Margaret cotton mill In Huntsville making $1.20 a day.” She only worked about five or six days a month. Obviously her economic situation wasn’t very good. She was “promiscuous, hard drinking, hard swearing…a common street prostitute of the lowest type” (...). Again, her only advantage was being

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