To Kill A Mockingbird Influences

There was a time in history that everyone was not treated fairly. Courts were rigged so a white person would always win. Black people were segregated in public. Black people were murdered for whistling at white women. Some of these real world events influenced Harper Lee’s writing, To Kill a Mockingbird. In To Kill a Mockingbird, blacks were treated poorly. White men could do whatever they wanted to a black person and they would not get in trouble. There are three main influences to Harper Lee’s novel, the influences are the Scottsboro Trials, Jim Crow Laws, and the murder of Emmett Till. The first event that influenced Harper Lee’s writing of the, To Kill a Mockingbird, was the Scottsboro Trials. The Scottsboro Trials were the trial of nine …show more content…
Emmett Till was a 14 year old boy that was killed by two white men, named Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, because he whistled at Roy Bryant’s wife, Carolyn Bryant. Blacks were not supposed to make skin contact, such as kissing, with a white person. White people are not to supposed to make skin contact with a black person. If they were to make contact, most likely what would happen is a white person would come and lynch them. Lynching was the most common. In To Kill a Mockingbird, blacks were killed because they either made contact or they associated with a white person. When a black person was killed by a police officer, the police officer did not show any remorse. They would not of cared as much unless it was a white person killed. In To Kill a Mockingbird, when Tom Robinson was shot to death, the police officer did not show any remorse because he shot Tom 17 times. “Oh yes, the guards called him to stop. They fired a few shots in the air, then to kill. They got him just as he went over the fence. They said if he [had] two good arms he [would] have made it, he was moving that fast. Seventeen bullet holes in him. They did [not] have to shoot him that much.” (Lee 235). If he would have showed remorse, he would not of shot Tom as much. Blacks were not supposed to flirt with whites, and when they saw a white walking down the road they had to step off to the side. They also were not supposed to feel sorry for a white person. When Tom Robinson was being questioned on why he did not take a reward when he did Mayella’s tasks, he said he felt sorry for her and did not want to take her money. Once he said that people in the courtroom were shocked about what he