Jim Crow Laws In To Kill A Mockingbird Essay

The first influence on Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is the Jim Crow laws. The Jim Crow laws were a set of rules that perpetuated racism and segregation. These rules were sickening and appalling. The Jim Crow laws were made to keep Blacks from interacting with Whites. For example, if a white woman were to fall a black man could not offer her, his hand to help her up because it was considered rape (Pilgrim 2). Many scientists and religious leaders justified these laws. One reason was that scientist thought that black peoples brains were inferior to those of white people. Also, many religious leaders believed that Whites were the chosen people and Blacks were just there to serve them (Pilgrim 2). If you were not following these laws, there were sever consequences. People believed these punishments were necessary to “keep Blacks in their place”. One example is mass lynching. This punishment is when a mob of people would take a black person, accused of breaking a rule, and beat them, torture them, and kill them. The police didn’t just not stop these rampages, often they would participate. The Jim Crow laws can be seen in To Kill a Mockingbird in many ways. One of the laws was that a black person could not say that a white person was lying (Pilgrim). This is shown in the book when Tom is accused of calling Mayella a liar, by Mr. Gilmer (Lee 224).

Discrimination is prevalent in the story “To Kill a Mockingbird”, the most obvious being the excessive amount of racism (Lee). Racism is the easiest to see but there are more forms of discrimination (Lee). Boo Radley is ostracized from the community when truly nobody really knows him (Lee). People discriminate Scout for being a tomboy not a lady (Lee). The last one that no one ever thinks about is how reverse racism is seen when people threaten Atticus for defending Tom Robinson in court (Lee). Discrimination in any form is a controversial topic but everyone knows that it is not right to discriminate against people.

Racism is in the daily lives of everyone. One group craves power and the other surrenders. It comes from a natural place and is the cause for many wars. With racism in the world it will never be a place of total serenity. Jim Crow, mob mentality, and the Scottsboro trial have effected a readers outlook on To Kill a Mockingbird.

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, is set in the time of The Great Depression, and shows several families that are faced with poverty. The Great Depression started with the stock market crash in 1929, between 1930 and 1934, one million farmers lost their homes and jobs. The Great Depression was making everyone poor and inflation was high. Many characters in the novel are extremely poor, such as the Cunninghams, so setting the the novel in the time of The Great Depression helps Lee to show differences between different classes.

To Kill a Mockingbird Do you know what it’s like to go through racism? It’s one of the worst experiences anyone could ever go through. Racism presents itself in many ways in the town of Maycomb. “ I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character”quoted by Martin Luther King Jr.

The theme of prejudice in To Kill a Mockingbird broadens to a further extent than just the situation of racial discrepancy between the blacks and the whites. Although, the racial discrimination mainly towards the blacks is the most prominent occurrence of injustice at Harper Lee’s time- the early Twentieth century, the whole novel includes several, other forms of prejudice that portray the unfavourable effects that was endured by innocent people. These blameless individuals were referred to mockingbirds, since it was a sin to kill one as said by Atticus, “Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” So, therefore mockingbirds are a representation of the main events that occurred

Lee also shows the real-life issue of mob mentality. Mob mentality is when a group of people gather together because they are angry about something. (Smith) In the NPR radio broadcast, It talked about the famous lynching in Indiana. Two teenagers were lynched and 10,000 people witness and enjoyed watching it. (“Strange Fruit: Anniversary of a Lynching”) The townspeople and farmers in the book experienced mob mentality. When Tom was in jail, a mob came to the jail to lynch Tom. Atticus sat out front to protect him. The mob was going to hurt Atticus to get to Tom. If Scout did not interfere, Atticus would have been severely injured. (Lee 172-174) Mob mentality can be directly connected to the Scottsboro

Mob mentality is the process of people being swept up in the moment when with a group and doing a deed a person would otherwise not do by themselves, such as pushing in an evacuation compared to being gentle, attending restaurants because they have more customers, and picking up a habit because other people are doing it (Smith). Furthermore, this theme has been prevalent in the past with lynching. Mob mentality helped the crowd elevate to a level where it would not have gone to before in regards to actions with violence. The crowds in an Indiana lynching went so far as to drag out to black men, beat them, then hang them, one already being dead and the other close to it (“Strange Fruit: Anniversary”). This lynching was captured in the form of a picture showing the people and how they seem elated over their idea of an accomplishment (Beitler). The residents of Lee’s town and its surrounding areas in her novel undergo periods of mob mentality. At the town jail a group of people, including Mr. Cunningham, gather to break Tom out of jail to lynch him. At that point Atticus is already at the scene and tries to talk the mob out of getting him. This goes on until Scout recognizes Mr. Walter Cunningham and starts to make small talk with him about his son and his ongoing entailment. It is then that Walter realizes he is singled out and being looked at as an individual, not just a portion of the mob. Because of that revelation, he calls off the mob and the group leaves Tom alone until his trial (Lee). From this excerpt of Lee’s book, the concept of mob mentality can be connected to her novel and the real world, as can the idea of

Mob mentality is when a group of people usually mad form together and make a very dangerous situation. The group usually ends up being violent and can get easily out of control. Some people join the mob mentality from peer pressure or the need to fit in (Smith 1). The article points out that being in a mob can make people feel like they are invisible or that their actions will not have consequences (Edmonds 1). When reading To Kill a Mockingbird people experience mob mentality first hand.

The Jim Crow laws had a very strong influence on the way of life of many people in the late 1800's up to the mid-1900's. Segregation was heavily enforced and accomplished the intended effect of people discriminating against each other, deeply affecting the southern region of the US. In Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird, many traces of the influence of the Jim Crow laws can be found, for her story is based on life in the 1930's, taking place in Maycomb County, Alabama. The traces of the laws are mostly seen through the characters in her novel and in the ways they interact with each other. Atticus Finch's character is the strongest force against the Jim Crow laws found in the novel, as a father, a brother and a lawyer.

Injustice: The Unfortunate Consequences of Racial Prejudice Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, Alabama. Her father, Amasa Lee, became the basis for Atticus Finch, Scout`s father and main protagonists within the story. (Baxter 1).

For hundreds of years there has been a lot of racial things going on they throughout this novel like blacks were not as equal as whites; there were laws that aided segregation and also unjust treatment of African Americans in the American society. Within Harper Lee’s fictional novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, The people are subjected to the harsh impact of Jim Crow in Maycomb, Alabama through the innocent narrator Scout Finch. By evaluating the impact of Jim Crow laws on black rights in America during the time period of the novel and present day, it is revealed that the influence of these laws remains the same on black rights today.

To Kill a Mockingbird. The first historical aspect that Harper Lee used in To Kill a Mockingbird is the Jim Crow Laws. Jim Crow was a set of laws that dehumanized blacks and kept them at the bottom of society. The laws reinforced black stereotypes and portrayed them as being inferior (Pilgrim).

Jim Crow Laws were when the government passed a law where black people went to different schools, churches, and grocery stores. They had to sit at that back of the bus, pretty much everything is based off your race. In the book To Kill A Mockingbird was during the time of the Jim Crow Law. Tom Robinson ( man accused of rape) was not guilty due to his race.

Have you ever been in a situation having to do with race? In the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, racism is a vital role in the time this story takes place. She wrote the story based on how racism was like in her eyes as a child. In my opinion, after reading her novel, racism still takes place in America many years later.