“That ni**er yonder took advantage of me an’ if you fine fancy gentleman don’t wanta do nothin’ about it then you’re all yellow stinkin cowards, stinkin’ cowards, the lot of you” (Lee 251). In a court trial in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Mayella Ewell denounces an African American man, Tom Robinson, for raping her. The reader learns Tom is innocent, but he is not believed due to the color of his skin; Tom now has to defend himself for a crime he did not commit because of the racial discrimination that exists in this fictitious town and during the time in which the novel is set. The novel takes place in the small southern town of Maycomb, Alabama during the Great Depression. Many towns like Maycomb also embraced discrimination during
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The prejudice against blacks, as reflected in 1930s U.S. history, is uncovered in To Kill a Mockingbird through lynching attempts and an unjust court trial of Tom Robinson, an African American minority. To begin, the reader is introduced to discriminatory action toward African Americans at the Maycomb county jail when Mr. Cunningham and his mob attempts to lynch Tom similar to the mob mentality that occurred in the Southern U.S. during the 1930s. Lynching is when a mob executes somebody without consent from court, usually using the method of hanging. First, in To Kill a Mockingbird, a lynching attempt can be witnessed when Mr. Cunningham and various mob members arrive at the Maycomb County Jail and demand to see Tom. “‘He in there, Mr. Finch?’ a man said ... ‘You know what we want,’ another man said. ‘Get aside from the door, Mr. Finch’” (Lee 202). Mr. Cunningham and the other mob members wanted to lynch Tom due to the accusation against him, however, they would be unsuccessful due to Scout’s conversation with Mr. Cunningham about his son Walter. The incident in the novel correlates to many other lynching attempts in the historic 1930s. Historically, racist mobs captured and beat African American males like
The prejudice against blacks, as reflected in 1930s U.S. history, is uncovered in To Kill a Mockingbird through lynching attempts and an unjust court trial of Tom Robinson, an African American minority. To begin, the reader is introduced to discriminatory action toward African Americans at the Maycomb county jail when Mr. Cunningham and his mob attempts to lynch Tom similar to the mob mentality that occurred in the Southern U.S. during the 1930s. Lynching is when a mob executes somebody without consent from court, usually using the method of hanging. First, in To Kill a Mockingbird, a lynching attempt can be witnessed when Mr. Cunningham and various mob members arrive at the Maycomb County Jail and demand to see Tom. “‘He in there, Mr. Finch?’ a man said ... ‘You know what we want,’ another man said. ‘Get aside from the door, Mr. Finch’” (Lee 202). Mr. Cunningham and the other mob members wanted to lynch Tom due to the accusation against him, however, they would be unsuccessful due to Scout’s conversation with Mr. Cunningham about his son Walter. The incident in the novel correlates to many other lynching attempts in the historic 1930s. Historically, racist mobs captured and beat African American males like