Racial Prejudice In To Kill A Mockingbird

Improved Essays
To Kill a Mockingbird
The evolution of race relations in our country has progressed largely at the expense of all minorities but especially the African-American population. When the United States of America was founded racial inequality was considered to be the norm. There were definite differences in the lives and customs between “whites or caucasians” and “African-Americans”. This was especially true in the southern states of our country. Although it was evident everywhere it was very blatant in the south. Adults were guilty of prejudices, religious bias and their own personal interpretations of “right” and “wrong”. Caucasian people were given privileges and opportunities that were never even considered for people of color.
Many glaring examples
…show more content…
In the 1930s two white men and two white women boarded a train in Alabama. There were thirteen black males that boarded the same train. The black men and the white men had a dispute which then turned into a fight. The thirteen black men one of which was said to have a pistol, threw the white men off the train. The white women, of which one of them was a known prostitute, claimed that they were then raped by the black men. When the train was stopped in Paint Rock, Alabama, the townspeople and local law enforcement took the black males into custody. They were charged for throwing the white men off the train and the supposed rape of the two white women. The trials lasted from 1931-1937. The black males did say that they threw the white men off the train but they denied rape charges. Throughout the trials some were proven guilty and some were proven innocent. Even the ones that were proven guilty were eventually let out of prison because evidence kept changing and new stories told. The community however could not let it go. They always found new reasons to bring the Scottsboro boys back into the courts and into prison. Even after one of the women stated in a letter that they were never raped by the Scottsboro boys, much of the community just went off a white woman 's statement of lies and the fact that the Scottsboro boys were black. Even after all the trials were over the boys always seemed to be back in prison or slandered by the community and media. The last surviving Scottsboro boy died at the age of

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Prejudice In the Society of Maycomb County “Prejudice is a learned trait. You’re not born prejudiced; you’re taught it.” Charles R. Swindoll once said. This quote relates to the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, because we see how racism in society influences the kids. Jem, Scout, and even Dill realize how the people of Maycomb treat others who are different than them.…

    • 1009 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “You run like a girl!” Everybody’s heard that phrase- or to put it otherwise, insult. Why is that considered an insult though? Since when is doing something like a girl a bad thing? Especially when you are a girl.…

    • 1008 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The main idea of this story is racial injustice to the South. As the first paragraph starts of her ancestors come to America was a fur trader and apothecary named Simon Finch, and he established a successful farm. It was on the Alabama river the farm was called Finch’s Landing, It supported the family for many years. Scout’s father, Atticus Finch, who was a lawyer in his nea by town Maycomb, his brother Jack Finch who went to medical school in Boston, and their sister Alexandra stayed to run the landing.…

    • 1079 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    I remember when the Scottsboro trial, it all started in 1831 during the Great Depression when nine boys were accused of rape. At the time not all nine boys knew each other nor were they together. These boys, Haywood Patterson (18),Charlie Weems (20), Ozie Powell (16), Clarence Norris (19), Olem Montgomery (17),Willie Roberson (17), Eugene Williams(13), Andrew (18) and Leroy Wright (12) illegally hopped on a train looking for work, they were taken off the train in Scottsboro where they were given a minor charge. After they were charged the deputies saw two white ladies Ruby Bates (17) and Victoria Price (21) and pressured them into accusing the nine innocent black boys of raping them, taking them to court (blackpast.org). When the court was…

    • 1017 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    I have recently learned about and observed the unfair prejudices and racial violence many Americans faced in the past. Through the 1900s African Americans were judged harshly for having a darker skin color. Although slavery had been abolished in 1865, African Americans were still treated like slaves, and were not able to move up the social ladder. They were often given jobs in dangerous conditions, and had to work long, hard hours for very little pay. In many cases African Americans were brutally murdered, lynched, and wrongfully accused and convicted of crimes they never committed, just because they had looked at someone wrong, or been in the wrong place at the wrong time.…

    • 703 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    To Kill a Mockingbird In our society, the 21st century, racism continues to exist but is not as prominent as in the 20th century. In the 20th century, caucasians were expected to be racist towards not just African-Americans but everyone who was not white. Looking back at race relations in the 20th century, cohesive relationships between different races was for the most part non-existent.…

    • 1778 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    During the 1930’s in southern America the African Americans were still being mistreated by the opposite race. Numerous African Americans were thrown in jail with no evidence in doing the crime. The novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird” focuses on the prejudice surrounding the trial of Tom Robinson who was an innocent black man accused of raping and horrendously beating a white woman. Similar situations comparable to this trial were very common during the 1930’s due to the Jim Crow Laws being strongly enforced in Alabama. In the 1930s the trial of the Scottsboro Boys took place, the case in which two young white women unjustly accused nine young African Americans of rape.…

    • 1197 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee tells the story of a trial of a black man named Tom Robinson in the Alabama town of Maycomb during the Great Depression. Tom Robinson, despite being innocent of the crime of which he is accused, is convicted. Lee uses this event as well as others to discuss the nature of prejudice and racism. Other forms of discrimination discussed in the novel are sexism and classism. Scout, the daughter of Tom Robinson’s lawyer, Atticus, is ridiculed for her choosing not to fit the ideal for a southern white woman.…

    • 1583 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Then that is different because you get a chance to see what the person is like based on them not on skin color, or money. Throughout “To Kill a Mockingbird” Scout is a naïve girl who would like to have all the information about something so that she can make her own perspective about it but in the beginning she made childish accusations. As the story progressed she was shown the true colors of people and understands how life is in Maycomb County, Alabama. Near the end she makes better decisions and the ideas that come to her mind make her seem more mature.…

    • 837 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    During the 1930’s there was a case of white people against black boys in the town of Paint Rock, AL (Ransdall).” This case was known as The Scottsboro Trials. A novel written by Harper Lee titled To Kill a Mockingbird has similar plot in which a black man, or Negro, was accused of raping a white woman (Lee). Both of these stories have similarities and parallels that are interesting to indulge in. The social characteristics, stigmas, and opinions if superiority influence the behaviors and decisions of those involved in both trials.…

    • 1819 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    When DuBois returned from Europe in 1892, more than 161 African Americans were victims of lynchings, or being hung in mobs. Just between 1882 and 1930, more than 3,300 were hung by mobs. DuBois learned that a man, Sam Hose, was brutally beaten, dismembered, and burned alive by a lynching mob in south Georgia. At the time, Hose was accused of murder even though it was supposedly self defense. The case wasn’t to investigated because of the lynching that took place soon after.…

    • 1588 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Prejudice in To Kill a Mockingbird The definition of prejudice is preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience. There is a lot of prejudice throughout the book To Kill a Mockingbird. The author of this book is Harper Lee. It was published in 1960 and was a book based around the Great depression.…

    • 729 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    When most people think of intense racism, they think of the horrible ways people of color were treated many years ago. Unfortunately, many people think racism is a thing of the past, when this is, in fact, false. In Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, racism is shown as common practice to many and a monstrosity to very few. Unfortunately, in the small town of Maycomb County, racism wins out as an African American man named Tom Robinson is falsely accused of raping a woman and is sentenced to death. This may now seem like an anomaly, but this is in fact something that happens in the present day.…

    • 1525 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The 20th century was dominated by World War I, World War II, nationalism, decolonization, the cold war, post-cold war. Although this century has witnessed many wars and invasions but it also witnessed developments on so many levels, in transportation, communications, technology, world population. One of the major issues in the 20th century that this research will examine is racism and ethnic relationships. IT is commonly assumed that racism is as old as human society itself. Since the Beginning of creation the argument between human beings goes; they have always hated people of a different nation or religion or skin color.…

    • 1312 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As a philosopher, Allan Bloom said, “reason transformed into prejudice is the worst form of prejudice, because reason is the only instrument for liberation from prejudice”. Harper Lee explores prejudice and how it affects society in her novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. The main character is a young girl named Scout, growing up in the 1930’s in Maycomb County, Alabama. Her father, Atticus is a lawyer, and tries to raise his kids to be unprejudiced. Having been raised this way, Scout and her brother Jem, struggle to understand the prejudiced ways of their society, sometimes showing their own prejudices themselves despite Atticus’ efforts.…

    • 1998 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays