Similarities Between To Kill A Mockingbird And The Scottsboro Trials

“The scars and stains of racism are still deeply embedded in the American society.” US Representative, John Lewis said this in his return to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial he spoke on 54 years ago, during the March on Washington. Racism has been around since the beginning of time, but it is not human nature. Racism is something that is taught, and given the amount of time that has passed since To Kill A Mockingbird and the March on Washington, one would think that racism wouldn’t be a serious issue any more. Although race relations have improved along with other social issues from the time of To Kill Mockingbird, racism and discrimination are major problems in today’s society.

The novel, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ was written by an American novelist, Harper Lee. The novel tells of a story how a single father lawyer, Atticus teaches his children, Jem and Scout important knowledge within different events that occur in Maycomb town. The film, ‘Mississippi Burning,’ was filmed by an English director, Alan Parker. The film unfolds a story of how two FBI agents are sent to investigate Mississippi town as a group of civil rights workers have mysteriously gone missing. Both creators, Harper Lee and Alan Parker demonstrate similarities as they explore the theme of prejudice in their text, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and ‘Mississippi Burning.’ This is portrayed through the discrimination against racism between the white and black individuals and sexism between women and men.

This trial did not just impact the life of the boys it impacted the life of others, after this trial they looked at how they did all these cases. As the time went on there became more and more fair trails, less biased jury and judges. But it does still exist, racism in court many years later. But the trial from Scottsboro, Alabama with Olen Montgomery, Clarence Norris, Haywood Patterson, Ozie Powell, Willie Roberson, Charles Weems, Eugene Williams, Andy Wright, and Roy Wright all falsely accused of raping Ruby Bates and Victoria Price was a prodigious part of the way they treated trails against African

In today's world, many small changes have been made in regard to racism. In the movie To Kill A Mockingbird, author Harper Lee presented the changes made in the way black people were viewed. In the movie Selma, Director Ava Duvernay revealed the struggle many had to endure in order to achieve the right to vote. Despite the success of these small problems, racism is still a big problem in today’s society. As revealed in To Kill A Mockingbird and Selma, even though small changes have occured, big change and a potential solution to the problem has still yet to happen in today’s world.

When Harper Lee was writing about the trial of Tom Robinson in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” she had a very real case to look to for inspiration. The trial of the Scottsboro Boys was a world renowned case in the 1930’s in which nine black youths were accused of raping to white girls in Alabama. Lee’s novel took this case and created the fictional case of Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a lower class white girl in a small town in Alabama during the Depression-era. The Scottsboro trials were the main source of inspiration for Lee’s novel, and although the circumstances of the novel differed from the real-life scandal, the similarities between the two cases are quite abundant.

What if you were innocent, but people couldn't see past your race and called you "guilty" for something you didn't do? This is one of the problems in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy. To Kill a Mockingbird is about a girl named Scout, who is growing up during The Great Depression. Just Mercy is about an upstart lawyer that deals with racial discrimination in the court system. Both To Kill a Mockingbird and Just Mercy correlate with each other, are significant today, and can be tied back to racial profiling.

The Scottsboro Trial and the trial of Tom Robinson are almost identical in the forms of bias shown and the accusers that were persecuted. The bias is obvious and is shown throughout both cases, which took place in the same time period. Common parallels are seen through the time period that both trials have taken place in and those who were persecuted and why they were persecuted in the first place. The thought of "All blacks were liars, and all blacks are wrongdoers," was a major part of all of these trails. A white person's word was automatically the truth when it was held up to the credibility of someone whom was black. Both trials were perfect examples of how the people of Alabama were above the law and could do whatever they

Since the 20th century many events have taken event shaping our views on race relationships. One being The Scottsboro Trials. Now, The Scottsboro Trials showed us many

There were pretty significant moments in this novel about the trial. People that took part in the trial had different testimonies such as Tom Robinson, Mayella Ewell, Bob Ewell, and Heck Tate. Heck claimed that after being contacted by Bob Ewell,he went to visit the Ewell home to find Mayella on the floor beaten. He said that he saw the right side of her face badly beaten with bruises near her neck. Bob claimed that he heard Mayella screaming within the Ewell house, and when he came inside, he saw Tom run away after seeing Bob. During Atticus' cross examination, furthermore, Bob consent with a request for Tom to write his name, which he did with his left hand. Mayella claimed that she offered Tom Robinson a nickel to ”bust up the chiffarobe,”

Many black people that have been falsely accused had to die. Even with no evidence, blacks are claimed guilty. Which goes back to how blacks were separate but equal. Having Tom Robinson’s case, the black people sat on the balcony while white people sat on bottom. This goes in the South of how people made the trials fair.

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee and the Civil Right Movement demonstrates how doing the right thing is not always the easiest option. In the story To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee there are many things that show how doing the right thing is not always the easiest option such as, Atticus’s Actions to defend Tom Robinson are similar to MLK’s actions because they both knew that it would be hard to win their fights. “Atticus, are we going to win it?” “No, honey.” “Then why-” “Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started there is no reason for us not to try to win,” “Atticus said. Dr. King wanted to use nonviolent civil disobedience to beat racism and segregation.” That is how Atticus and MLK knew their fight would be hard

A quote I once read by Frederick Douglass said “The white man’s happiness cannot be purchased by the black man’s misery”, this statement symbolizes that generations before us had suffered substantially by racism, injustice and violence. In the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird”, we observed that in the 1930s, though slavery was abolished, a black man was still not treated as if he were a member of society. More than a decade later in “A Lesson before Dying” we still witness racism playing a big role in civilization. Even though these novels are very different in certain circumstances they have one big similarity. In both books we are taken first hand into two courtroom cases where a white man is accusing a black man of a ruthless act. Through the

In chapter 10 we learned about civil rights. While we have come a long way we still have a lot to do in order to improve our situation. There still discrimination and racial bias that restricts certain groups from living a better life. From this chapter, it’s clear that amendments and policies will never completely get rid of racism. In order to combat racism, we have to educate people and it has to come from within. With a lot of countries, they realize how there have been so many wrongdoings in their history and they acknowledge it through truth and reconciliation process or in the history books like Germany. While in America, we never really acknowledge it or talk about it which makes it hard to deal with the past and move on. This chapter

Power is when you have complete power or control over something or someone.The Tom Robinson trial occurred in the 1930’s during the great depression and was a trial called the Tom Robinson trial . A poor white women(Mayella) lures a black man(Tom Robinson) into her house and accuses him of rape. He is took to court and killed all because of power and race when all she wanted was attention.

Aman Gill Ms.Prete ENG 2D1 05/05/15 Discrimination: Cause & Effect Discrimination is defined as making distinctions and judgments based on a person’s membership in a certain group. When discrimination is applied, it tears that person or group of people away from the whole of society, marking them as different or abnormal. Through the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, she displays many incidents of this destructive act. Using mainly racism, sexism and classism, Harper Lee illustrates the ways in which discrimination negatively impacts society.