Similarities Between The Scottsboro Boys And To Kill A Mockingbird

One will hear the saying “Life is unfair,” at least multiple times throughout their lifetime. Even though this quote is not directly stated in the novel To Kill A Mockingbird, the injustice that occurs points to it. This novel shows many factors of what life was like in the segregated southern states during the 1900’s. The Finch family becomes your not so typical Maycomb family when Atticus Finch being chosen to represent Tom Robinson, a negro, at a court trial. The trial is viewed in different ways by characters such as Atticus, Scout, Jem, Aunt Alexandra, and many others from Maycomb. Those views are apparent in changes throughout the family and city before, during, and after the court trial.

First of all, there is always a right way to treat someone and the way you treat someone shouldn’t be depended on what color of skin they have. “It couldn’t be worse, Jack. The only thing we’ve got is a black man’s word against the Ewells‘. The evidence boils down to you-did—I-didn’t. The jury couldn’t possibly be expected to take Tom Robinson’s word against the Ewells’—are you acquainted with the Ewells?” (48). This shows that Tom Robinson has no chance at winning the case because of his color. Even though, the one place that should respect any color and treat everyone fair is the courtroom, but judges carry their feelings right into there. Since the Ewells are white they are going to get respected more and treated better and more trustworthy, so when they say Tom Robinson is guilty, they all believe them over Tom’s word. Tom wasn’t being cruel

The classic book “To Kill a Mockingbird” and the movie “Remember the Titans” deals with the concept of social injustice in terms of racial prejudice through the setting and characters. Both stories took place in a time where in Southern areas, people were treated very poorly based on their race. In “To Kill a Mockingbird”, one of the main characters, Atticus Finch, was a white lawyer who was fighting to acquit a black man, Tom Robinson. Tom was being accused of sexually assaulting a white woman named Mayella Ewell, even though a lot of evidence in the case indicated that he was innocent. The jury declared Tom was guilty because of the racial prejudice against him.

When you think of the story of Emmett Till you think of young boy who was killed for whistling at a white woman, he never got justice. The same goes go for Tom Robinson he never got justice, he was convicted of rapping Mayella Ewell when the evidence was there for his inacents but there was an all white jury that convicted him. Both Emmett Till and Tom Robinson never got justice , both had all white juries on their cases, both took place in the hatted Jim Crow south. (T.K.A.M. Ch.20)

Also reminiscent of the Scottsboro case was the fictional Maycomb County’s jury composition. In the novel the jury composed of solely white men, there were no blacks or women in the ranks. The lack of diversity within the novel’s jury is mimicked in the Scottsboro case. In Scottsboro it was state law that “any businessman or professional people could excuse themselves from jury duty for any official reason” (Hamilton 210). Thus was formed a jury of uneducated, white, landing owning, males, with plenty of free time, alas a jury that would doom and black man or women. It is on this topic of the loaded jury that the defense counsel for the Scottsboro case, Mr. Samuel Leibowitz, fought for the hardest. The testimony of Scottsboro’s registrar and commissioner, it is made clear the mindset of legal system in regards to black jurors. In this testimony the feeling towards blacks is clearly outlined, “no black man and no woman is capable of servin on a jury, supporting their contention with the declaration that, even though there were black people who were educated, held professional jobs, and good reputations, none had ‘sound judgment’ and ‘they will nearly all steal’” (12). Due to the setup of the jury system both Tom Robinson and the Scottsboro boys were dooms to a sentence of guilty even before they reached trial.

serves as another major contributor to the racial lopsidedness which pervades the prison industrial complex. Alexander states that racial biases on juries has historic roots in slavery, “until 1860, no black person had ever sat on a jury in the United States. During the Reconstruction era, African Americans began to serve on juries in the South for the first time.” (Alexander, 117) Alexander contends that the lack of diversity on juries lead to countless miscarriages of justice against African-Americans. An example of this would be the infamous Scottsboro Boys case in which nine African-American teenagers were accused of rape by two white women. The teenagers were swiftly sentenced to death by an all-white jury even though one of the girls

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” (Martin Luther King Jr.). A timeless phrase by one of equalities most notable voices. Over 50 years later, the words of Martin Luther King Junior ring out, calling for racial barriers to crumble, and those of ignorance would say they have. But dig a little deeper, and they are found to be still standing, now decorated with facades of constitutional equivalence, and buried beneath years of tepid acceptance. In the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, written in the same time period as Martin Luther’s words, evident racial bias is presented through a court case in the small Southern town of Maycomb, Alabama. A black man by the name of Tom Robinson is charged with the rape of a young

This is just another example of how unjust the system truly was. Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird shares a similar story. Even though there is hard proof Tom Robinson isn’t even capable of hurting someone, the all-white jury decides that he is guilty simply because of the

“In our courts, when it’s a white man’s word against a black man’s, the white man always wins” (Lee 251-252). In the novel the author, Harper Lee, correctly describes how during the Great Depression even though they said all men were created equal, though that is not truly what they believe. It is known that, “ in the previous eras the prejudicial treatment of black defendants was attributable to a multitude of factors, including statutory inequality and the racist attitudes of trial and appellate judges, bias in contemporary criminal trials.” (Sommers and Ellsworth) Both of these statements, one by the same author, contradicts Atticus statement that says, “ our courts are the great levelers, and in our courts all men are created equal.”( Lee 205) That single fact does not stand along though for there was also segregation against women which at the time was commonly overlooked and treated as normal. In court back then women were not given any power to make decisions, they were not even allowed on juries. A women could simply not “...serve because she is a woman; since the jury consisted of men…” (The Artifice) causing women to simply have no power and cases be biased towards white men. During the court case in To Kill a Mockingbird the limited amount of women's power is shown in the case when, “Miss Maudie can't serve on a jury because she's a woman.”(Lee C23) Both of these statements contradicts the part of Atticus’s statement where he proclaims that, “in our courts all men are created equal.” ( Lee 205) Even though the racial and gender discrimination that for the most part only favored white men, in the justice system, being a white poor man made you accepted more than women and African Americans, but less than the economy stable white man. Although no matter your color or gender non-fair trails were the simple and unfair truth.

To illustrate how justice is a thing for people who fit a certain criteria, Tom Robinson was a black man who was accused of sexual assaulted. All the evidence brought up in court by Atticus Finch, his lawyer made it all clear that Tom was innocent. The disadvantage is that trial wasn’t fair, the entire jury was white. Not to mention the court room was segregated by having the people of color sit far from the white people. As Atticus states “In our courts, when it’s a white man’s word against a black’s man the white man always wins.”

The saying “Life isn’t fair” is always right. No matter fair something seems, there is always something just about, no matter how small it is. In To Kill a Mockingbird, a young man named Tom Robinson is sentenced to death because of his race. Even though all of the evidence backs him up, he is still found guilty because he is African American. This happens because of all the prejudice that the people of Maycomb possess. Throughout To Kill a Mockingbird, author Harper Lee depicts her views on prejudice and how it affects society. Harper Lee asserts that the amount of prejudice someone receives is dependent on one’s race and gender, and that to overcome prejudice one must become acquainted with many different groups of people.

Racial discrimination has been around for the last century, and it is still occurring in the modern era, with it a major wave of negative and sometimes positive contribution to the world. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the author demonstrates a very clear definition of racial discrimination through Tom Robinson’s case. To Kill a Mockingbird is a story mostly defined for its significance through Tom Robinson’s trial, a colored man being accused of raping and beating Mayella a white girl and being defended by Atticus Finch a white male, but the end results claims him guilty. In three other sources “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King Jr., “Montgomery Boycott” by Coretta Scott King, and “The Back of the Bus” by Mary Mebane

The jury also showed signs of prejudice in the Scottsboro case. All twelve of the jurymen concluded a guilty verdict for the first trial – despite even medical evidence: “it was [Jack Tiller’s] semen … that was found in [Victoria Price’s] vagina” and not that of any of the alleged black boys (Linder). The reasons the jury had for its verdict were formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge – going back to the definition of prejudice stated in paragraph two. The jury had its decision made before the case ever made it into the courtroom. The jury consisted of all white men – but it is not to say that a jury of all black men would have been any fairer. The prejudice during the Great Depression did not only come from the whites, many blacks also felt hate for the white men. The prejudice of white men towards black men can be seen in To Kill a Mockingbird, especially during the trial between Mr. Ewell and Tom Robinson over the alleged rape of his daughter Mayella.

“In 2010, the U.S. Sentencing Commission reported that African Americans receive 10% longer sentences than whites through the federal system for the same crimes” (11 Facts About Racial Discrimination). When someone hears justice, they tend to think fairness and equity, though that doesn’t always seem to be the case. For those who do not have a complete understanding over the justice system's functions, it is difficult to form an idea of how justice works. In To Kill A Mockingbird, Atticus Finch as well as Bryan Stevenson, in Just Mercy, are faced with a similar case where they are trying to defend an African American male that was wrongly convicted. Both Stevenson and Atticus have similar qualities as they contemplate that it is morally right to give people an equal chance to prove their innocence. Though the court has a different standpoint towards black people's innocence, which led to racial discrimination. Racial injustice, an issue that is still prevalent today, is illustrated throughout Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy, and modern day society.

In the book, To Kill a Mockingbird, the idea of a black man winning a court case against a white man in unimaginable in the 1930’s Alabama setting. When a black man, Tom Robinson, is falsely charged with raping a white woman, few white people in the courtroom believe him while he is telling his side of the story. Atticus, Robinson’s attorney, explains to his children that “...when it’s a white man’s word against a black man’s, the white man always wins”(Lee 295) because of the deep-rooted racism of their town that caused him to lose the case. While Robinson was a poor black man, the jury would have still declared him guilty even if he was wealthy only because of his race. These cases were prevalent in the 1930’s, and infamously documented in the Scottsboro Boys trial. In 1931, nine