Jim Crow Laws In To Kill A Mockingbird

In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the Jim Crow laws played a major role in the plot of the book. The Jim Crow laws were a series of laws and unofficial rules that set the standard for how African Americans should behave in public in the United States, primarily in the South (Pilgrim). According to David Pilgrim, the intended purpose of these laws and rules were to segregate blacks and whites in all parts of society, and to severely restrict the rights of African Americans. Accordingly, these laws and rules included restrictions in regard to when African American men could touch white men and women (in the case of the latter, never). In addition, people had to create “separate but equal” facilities for black people and white people (they were often not equal). There were many specific reasons for which people …show more content…
Regardless of how they got such racist beliefs, the supporters of Jim Crow always seemed to have a reason for them. Pilgrim states in his article that this reasoning was ample enough for some white people to convict African Americans of crimes they could not have possibly committed, and was even ample enough for some whites to lynch African Americans for violating the supposedly unofficial code of conduct (Pilgrim). There were many instances in which the laws and rules appeared during the course of To Kill a Mockingbird. For example, one simple rule of Jim Crow stated that blacks must refer to whites by a title of propriety, such as Ma’am, Sir, Mr., Mrs., Miss, etc., but whites could refer to African Americans simply by their name (Pilgrim). This appeared throughout the book, but one place in which it was very evident was during the trial. When Mr. Gilmer, the white prosecuting attorney, cross-examined Tom, who was an African American witness for the defense and the defendant, he called Tom “boy” and Robinson”; on the other hand, Tom referred to Gilmer as “sir” and