Racism In 1930s

Racism is a disturbing and brutal topic. People over look racism because they don't feel that their opinion is going to affect the community. The question often asked is “How has racism changed” and “Has racism gotten better or worse?” I am on the fence with this particular topic. Today, we have no more segregation in the United States, this means no more separate water fountains, bathrooms, schools, blacks don't have to sit at the back of busses, etc. Although, there has been more brutal acts of racially motivated acts against all races. Obviously there's still racism, it’s not just going to disappear, it’s always going to be here. It’s all about people’s opinions, it’s not like a fact that can be proven wrong. Racism has changed in many different ways since the 1930s.

In the opening pages of her novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee wrote these words: “There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with…but it was a time of vague optimism for some of the people: Maycomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself.” Lee alludes to the seemingly inadequate reassurance that United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt provided during his inauguration speech at the onset of the Great Depression, while also describing the melancholy and hopelessness that many citizens felt. This sentiment, however, was not just confined to the United States—the impact of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 had also reverberated throughout Latin America, and

In Alex LaFosta’s article called “Racism in the 1920s & 1930s,” “Signs told African-Americans where they could and could not go.” These signs are apart of the Jim Crow law, which affected many African Americans during the 1930s. The rise of the KKK have came into effect causing more racial problems in the southern states such as Maycomb Alabama. In the novel Harper Lee writes “I seen that black nigger yonder ruttin’ on Mayella!” (Lee 231). Tom Robinson had racist people against him since the start of the trial, the lies that Mayella’s dad was saying are harsh. Racism played a large role in the people of Maycomb’s

“ There’s four kinds of folks in the world there’s the ordinary kind like us and the neighbors there’s kind like the Cunninghams out in the woods the kind like the Ewells down at the dump and the negroes “( Lee 23) This is how Jem sees socioeconomic in Maycon from rich to poor the Ewells are second to last since they live near the dump which is very different from the people like the Finch who are on the top and the Cunninghams are in the middle. In a small town like Maycomb Alabama where socioeconomic inequality was highly present, since this story takes place in the 1930’s the years of the Great Depression where people were unemployed, lost there homes and had lack of food, People form Maycomb would treat the people who were affected by this

This Alabama town, impoverished by the Great Depression, is congested with racism, poverty, and sexism. These three things are common in similar towns around Maycomb, and basically, all of Alabama. Women are Expected to be as ladylike as possible. Families are destitute and cannot even pay back a dollar. Black people are categorized as trash, possibly even worse than trash. All of these things are the horrid reality people woke up to in the 1930’s.

In the year of 1959 numerous things happened, as well as several things being released. It could surprise younger people of our generation; the way things worked, what happened, and even how many things were priced. Though the US abolished slavery in 1865, (and in 1870 African American men were given the right to vote though it was not until almost a century later that this was fully recognized across the US.) the US was still a fairly racist place, an example is that it white and black people lived in their own little area(A white street, and vica versa). This was not enforced by any law obviously so a black family could very well live in ‘white’ neighborhood. It would just earn lot attention, and controversy from other people.

The character Dolphus Raymond shows the readers inequality Whites show towards African Americans throughout the Great Depression. Dolphus Raymond’s life shows the reader that him and his family are discriminated from the other families in Maycomb. In Dolphus’ earlier life, he married an African American woman and had “mixed” children; in the book it stated his children have no true home, “Colored folks won’t have ‘em because they’re half white; white folks won’t have ‘em because they’re colored,” (Lee, 1960, 214). The discrimination in Maycomb is highlighted by the creation of Dolphus Raymond’s kids; they do not belong in any community during this time period. Neither Dolphus or his family can fit into a perfect way of life. The

During this novel there are different quotes that prove that the county of Maycomb is racist and prejudice. Jem and Scout were talking deep in the novel about the social system and why African-Americans are treated differently in Maycomb and then that led up to a remark Jem

In this article there was affect that affected the whole story. This affect had to do with the great depression and racism back in the 1940s. People did not like black people. They would separate them from there color and the blacks had less rights

The number one thing that society is best at is tearing one’s life apart for the most ludicrous reasons. In this great novel that Harper Lee had written, To Kill A Mockingbird, she had made it pretty clear that the story took place during the Great Depression in the 1930’s. It was clear that it had taken place during this time because of how she had explained the setup of things. Nobody in the town she lived in had a lot of money, and as she had explained, she just grew up in a small, poor town. Of course, the Great Depression had played a major role in this factor, though. As Lee had explained in the beginning of the book, ‘“Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it… There was no hurry,

The first part of the book ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ by Harper Lee is discretely filled with the ingrained racism of Maycomb county. Black and White people were clearly separated in the county and how they were separated physically. While in the second part, Tom Robinson’s trial exposes how deep Maycomb’s racism went. While good men, who seemed to be respectful and good, showed how they felt about Tom, Scout and Jem started to understand what had been hidden deep in Maycomb’s heart. Even though they had lived there all their life, they had only then realized and saw in person what a black man was to the county. Even the Ewells, who were ‘trash’ for many, were defended against one of the most respectable black men in the county. The trial was

Following the postwar era , the 20th century marked an atmosphere of a certain spirit of positivity and change that soon flooded the world, hitting impactfully in the United States. The quest for racial equality as well as qender quality began.

Harper Lee used this cultural issue in her book in several ways. The first is Jem, Scout and friend Dill meet Dolphus Raymond and learn that he has several biracial children. Mr. Raymond is a white man that distances himself from other white men and hangs around blacks. He cannot marry his black partner because it is illegal. He gives Scout, Jem and Dill his view about how most whites treat blacks. ‘"Cry about the hell white people give colored folks, without even stopping to think that they're people, too,"’ (Lee 201). During these times the Supreme Court passed a “separate but equal” law however the two races were not treated the same. Blacks were treated as less than human. Tom Robinson was a black man accused of raping an impoverished white

“Cause you brought the flames and you put me through hell. I had to learn how to fight for myself” (Kesha).

The decades of the middle of the twentieth century are full of histories about fights to conquer some rights, which had been forgotten in the first half of the century for some part of the population of the United States of America. The minorities had been holding on the segregation and the exclusion from an American society who had flourished in a country, which had built after the second world war as one of the world’s powers, and it was about time for them to claim their part of the cake and fight to win the rights that had been denied to them.