To Kill A Mockingbird Social Injustice Quotes Analysis

Martin Luther King Jr once said “Justice denied anywhere diminishes justice everywhere.” This famous quote has a lot of significance in Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, a book written through the perspective of a child showing her view of the social injustices happening in her small town. When people are denied rights in their normal, everyday life, they are going to be denied equal rights everywhere else, even in court. Atticus, Tom Robinson’s lawyer’s, quote, “our courts are the great levelers, and in our courts all men are created equal,” is proven wrong when an innocent black man is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit, just because of the color of his skin. Through her use of the dark irony of the trial and Jem’s view of Tom Robinson, Harper Lee shows that justice is something that not all people have, no matter the circumstances. During the trial in Harper Lee’s …show more content…
Jem Finch is the older brother of the main character, a young child living in Maycomb. Throughout the whole trial, Jem was completely convinced that Tom Robinson would be proven innocent. Jem was young and didn’t understand the harsh reality of social injustice because of skin color. All he saw was an innocent man being accused of a crime that he didn’t commit. If courts really were the levelers of the world where all men are created equally, then the judges would have looked past Robinson’s skin color to see that the evidence did not add up, and he didn’t commit the crime. This proves that no matter how equal a courtroom is supposed to be, racism gets in the way. In a circumstance such as in a courtroom or a trial, everyone should have equal rights. Jem is an example of how justice is something denied to people because he sees the way things should really be. He sees Tom through eyes that are not racially biased, and believed that he deserved the justice that he didn’t