Alissa Compton
Ivy Tech 111
Ms. Deshaney
11 Dec. 2016
To Kill a Mockingbird Essay Race relations have always been prevalent in the United States. Many people have fought and risked their lives to overcome these racial differences. Race relations have played a large role in forming today’s nation. This process has been evolving over past and even current generations. Racial division can be seen in numerous situations in the 20th and 21st centuries. The cases of Scottsboro Trials and the Emmett Till Murder Trial, and the fictional case of Tom Robinson’s trial in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird all happened in the 20th century. They showed the tough times of races being divided and crimes against one another. Race related crimes are still happening even in today’s society. Texas Dept. of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, Inc. and the Coca-Cola Company lawsuit both also show recent cases of discrimination and race relations. The Scottsboro Trials were nine African-American boys that were accused of raping two white women on a train by Scottsboro, Alabama, in the 1930s. The Scottsboro boys were on the train looking for jobs when they were accused of rape. Scottsboro deputies got two white women, Rudy Bates and Victoria Price, to accuse the nine boys of raping them on the train. The deputies basically pressured the women into accusing the boys, and this just shows how bad the racism truly was. At this time in history the charge of raping a white
The Emmett Till murder shined a light on the horrors of segregation and racism on the United States. Emmett Till, a young Chicago teenager, was visiting family in Mississippi during the month of August in 1955, but he was entering a state that was far more different than his hometown. Dominated by segregation, Mississippi enforced a strict leash on its African American population. After apparently flirting with a white woman, which was deeply frowned upon at this time in history, young Till was brutally murdered. Emmett Till’s murder became an icon for the Civil Rights Movement, and it helped start the demand of equal rights for all nationalities and races in the United States.
in Scottsboro Trials says, “...two white women, Ruby Bates and Victoria Price, accused the black men of raping them.” (Scottsboro:American Tragedy) Another similarity is that the main plaintiffs Victoria Price and Mayella Ewell lied about their cases to defend their white womanhood and protect themselves from getting caught illegally riding the train. The Scottsboro Trials document declares that Victoria Price and her friend Ruby Bates avoided arrest from riding the train by saying that they were raped. (Scottsboro: An American Tragedy)
After reading the intense story of Emmett Till in the Mississippi Trial, the romantic, yet engaging Pride & Prejudice, and depressing, yet confusing story of Hamlet, have taught me that you really need to look twice before you completely understand what’s happening in the novels. Thought my essay you are going to see reasons why I’m choosing to write about the three stories I listed above and how they have influenced my life and how I gained more of a perspective on the different times throughout the centuries and how they have evolved going from Emmett Till’s segregation age to Pride and Prejudice’s romance during the renaissance age to Hamlet’s Medieval Times.
The documentary, narrative "The Lynching of Emmett Till" by Christopher Metress, tells Emmett's story of death through various points of view. On August 24, 1955, Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old African American boy from Chicago, entered a rural grocery store of Money, Mississippi. Because the young child had been gloating about his bond with white people up north, his southern cousins had dared him to go into the store and say something to the women working the register. Emmett accepted their challenge; seconds later he was at the counter, set on purchasing two items. What he did or said next will never be known for sure, but whatever passed between these two strangers from two different worlds set off a chain reaction that would forever
Following, numbers of shootings involving law enforcement and black men, race became a pertinent topic among American people. It seems that two groups have revealed themselves through these discussions, those who believe race is still a problem in America, and those who believe America is a post-racial society. History is one of the clearest indicators showing that race may still be relevant in modern communities. A plethora of connections can be drawn between discrepancies in poverty, incarceration, and poor education between whites and blacks when you look at events in our nation’s history such as slavery, sharecropping, Jim Crow laws, and more. With that being said, one of the more significant examples of institutional racism in America is one that is rarely
The Scottsboro Trials of Alabama, started in 1931. Nine African American boys were accused of raping two girls on board a train near Scottsboro, Alabama.(A Tragedy of the American South) A fight broke out between white and black groups of youths. Victoria Price and Ruby Bates accused the boys of rape.(A Tragedy of the American South) Instead of the two girls getting charged with vagrancy and prostitution, they blamed the black boys of raping them..(A Tragedy of the American South) Rape was a politically explosive charge in the south.(A Tragedy of the American South) The case went to the US Supreme court in 1937, where Clarence Norris called the girls liars and was then struck by a bayonet.(A Tragedy of the American South) After going to court the boys spent two years between their first trials and second round. (Tragedy of the American South) One
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
Emmett Till was born July 25, 1941 in Chicago. His parents were Mamie and Louis Till.When his father became abusive, his mother separated from him. She remarried twice and divorced once and they moved to Detroit where her father lived when Till was nine. When Emmett was fourteen, his great uncle invited his cousin Wheeler to go to Mississippi; he begged his mother to allow him to go along too. She agreed and explained to him the Jim Crow laws.(“Emmett Till”1)
Emmett Till a native of Chicago had no idea that his life would tragically end while visiting family in Money, MS. The death of Emmett Till had a major impact on the already rapidly growing Civil Rights movement (www. Biography.Com). Till’s death gained national attention to the small town of Money, MS after Till made a choice to make hissing gestures at a white woman. Till’s death was just one of the hundred deaths that were occurring in African American men and women of color.
Emmett Till is a 14 year old African American boy who was brutally murdered. Emmett was visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi and went into a small store. No one knows what happened in it. His friends dared Emmett to ask out Carolyn Bryant, who was insulted and told her husband. Carolyn said he wolf whistled, but he was taught to whistle before saying hard words. Roy Bryant was furious when he figured this out. Later Emmett was taken by J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant. Emmett was beat, tortured, and tied to a cotton gin before he was thrown into a river. His body was so disfigured that his own uncle couldn't recognize his body. A jury of all white men found J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant not guilty. Emmett, a young black child was savagely killed for
Emmett till was born July 25,1941 he was 14 year old boy.His mother sent him to Mississippi to see his family.While there he saw a white women go bye while he was with his friend’s he called the white women out of name.He said”hey baby” to the white women she told her half brother, husband and two of their friends.Outside the house of his uncle the four men kidnapped beat and killed Emmett Till.One month later on September 23, 1955 the body was found and the four men was put on trial for murder of Emmett Till and a all whit jury found them guilty of murder.
“Racism, xenophobia and unfair discrimination have spawned slavery, when human beings have bought and sold and owned and branded fellow human beings as if they were so many beasts of burden” (Desmond Tutu). America is truly shaped by human experiences. From The Triangle Trade, to our Founding Fathers owning slaves, to the Civil War, to Civil Rights Movement, and finally to today. Racism has led to a great deal of impaction on the United States. One event that rocked our nation would be the Scottsboro trials in the 1930’s. The Scottsboro case tragedy changed America because for the first time it was made public, heightened the nation's emotions and whites Southerners felt threatened by the colored and their advancements.
Emmett Till was a 14 year old African American boy who was brutally beaten and murdered for allegedly whistling at a white woman. Emmett Till lived in Chicago,but was visiting family in Money, Mississippi(source 2). Carolyn Bryant, the “victim”, might have thought he had whistled at her. Emmett had a small speech impediment because he had polio when he was young, and he sometimes whistled to help him. The only witness to this act was Carolyn Bryant. Emmett was beaten and murdered for whistling in a white woman’s presence in a small grocery store(source 1). Roy Bryant(Carolyn’s husband) was outraged and took J.W. Milam to kill Emmett. They shot him in the head and beat him up. Then they tied a heavy fan around Emmett’s neck
Emmett’s mother was also called to the witness stand. She was asked if the photo of the brutally beaten and tortured boy that was pulled out of the river was her son, and she confirms with, “ A mother knows her child, has known him since he was born. I looked at the face very carefully...I just looked at it very carefully, and I was able to find out that it was my son, Emmett Louis Till.” Even with all the evidence that Bryant and Milam had done this awful murder of this young boy, at the end of the trial the jury and judge had acquitted both men. These two men had committed such a sick and disturbing crime, feel no remorse, and get away with it. This also shows racism, and the effects it had, If the trial had not took place in the south, with
Almost every member of the black community in Maycomb County is admirable in their personalities and innocent in their nature, and this generalisation makes the crimes against the black community all the worse. Tom Robinson, a man discriminated and accused of a crime that he didn’t commit has come forth to the justice system. The color of his skin determines everything from his background too if he’s guilty or not. A black man’s life is unable to prove innocence because of his race. Poverty has affected many people back in the 1960’s but, if a black man or women were to experience this they would be put on the white