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Examples Of Racism In To Kill A Mockingbird

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Do you think there was racism at the time of the Great Depression? The answer to that question is yes there was racism at that time. During the book To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, there’s a wide display of racism to show that it was set during the Great Depression in a small town called Maycomb in the 1930’s. Racism is present everywhere throughout this book, from the beginning to the end. This is developed by all the people in the town of Maycomb being racist towards African Americans, and some African Americans are being racist towards white people. Harper Lee has made Maycomb townspeople racist to show that this book was set during the Great Depression. We can tell it’s during this time period because of the way people lived and …show more content…

The townspeople were against Atticus for defending Tom because he was an African American. Atticus didn’t care what anyone said about him and continued to defend Tom. For example, in the book, Atticus states “The jury couldn’t possibly be expected to take Tom Robinson’s word against the Ewells...”(Lee, 88). What Atticus means by this is no matter how innocent Tom is the jury will still find him guilty and take Mr. Ewell's word instead of Tom’s because Tom is black. Atticus had tried the best he could to prove Tom was innocent because he isn’t racist and thinks everyone deserves the same amount of respect as everyone else no matter the color of their skin. Even when Tom was declared guilty Atticus still tried to see if he could get another trial to prove that he was innocent. (Lee). It doesn’t just stop here in the book for racism there is more all throughout the …show more content…

An example of her racism is when she states, “You ain’t got no business bringin’ white chillun here - they got their church, we got ours.”(Lee, 119). Lula was talking to Calpurnia in front of the kids when they all walked into the church, named The First Purchase. Lula is expressing her racism towards white people because she thinks that they are all racist towards African Americans and doesn’t care if Atticus is helping Tom. She believes that since Scout and Jem are white they shouldn’t be in an African American church and should just leave and go back to their own

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