What Is Racial Prejudice Against African Americans In The 1930's

Prejudice is embedded into society and is taught from generation to generation. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee the setting is 1930’s in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama. The people in this town look down on those different from them and have been taught prejudice for generations. Even though it was set so long ago the lessons are still applicable to many situations today. In this story a young girl named Scout is the narrator and her father is a lawyer who is representing a black man accused of raping a white girl. It is obvious what the fate of the man will be but the story highlights how and why an innocent man is sent to prison and later murdered.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee showcases the racial injustices and tensions that were presented in the 1930s; since the 1930s the racial tensions have improved, but with improvement, there will always be a struggle and other circumstances that prevent complete equality from prevailing. Segregation, racism, and inequality have all been obstacles that were presented in the 1930s. Issues such as racial bias and profiling that occur not only in the south, but even in the U.S. Criminal Justice System have arisen. Although race relations and social injustices have improved since the 1930s, some issues such as racism towards citizens who are not considered white Americans have stayed similar since that time.

In today’s society, we face prejudice every day in many forms. Most people in today’s society have either been victims of prejudice or are guilty of exhibiting prejudice towards others.

In the story “To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, the main character Scout realizes the town she lives in is full of bias and prejudice toward negros. Scout, the only daughter of lawyer Atticus Finch, is faced with the activism that follows this prejudice when her father decides to defend a negro, Tom Robinson, in the court of law. She is constantly harassed and tormented by the residence of their small town, Maycom. What Lee is trying to show through these events is that people are always going to have prejudices, and sometimes these prejudices come from the people you least expect it form. In the story, neighbors, friends, and family all show their prejudices about the defendant Tom Robinson to Scout, who finally realize the world isn’t perfect but is, in fact, full of flaws and prejudices.

The setting of the book To Kill A Mockingbird has a huge role on the conflicts, outcome of the trial, and Jem and Scout’s development. The book takes place in Maycomb county Alabama, in the 1930’s during the Great Depression. Since Alabama is in the south, and was before the Civil Rights Movement, most of the white residents in the town were racist. In the book, the town of Maycomb is almost like a character on its own. It is a small town that had lots of farmers who were struck hard by the Great Depression. Scout, who is the narrator of the book describes it by saying, “Maycomb was a tired old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square”(Lee 6). Scout even goes on to say, “People moved slowly then. They ambled across the square, shuffled in and out of the stores around it, took their time about everything”(Lee 6). In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the conflict of racism is shown through the trial, Atticus, and Jem and Scout’s uprising in a non-racist home but in a prejudice town.

Imagine being persecuted your entire life. Having to constantly respect someone even though they were rude to you. This is what many African-Americans had to go through during the 1930’s. Racism is a major aspect in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The main character, Scout, has to deal with this problem everyday. Bob Ewell, Mr. Cunningham, and other characters are very racist, and don’t approve of Atticus defending a “Negroe”. This causes Scout to be bullied in school and even attacked by Mr. Ewell. Also, characters such as Tom Robinson are negatively affected by racism in Maycomb. Tom is killed just because of his skin color. In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee’s use of point-of-view, irony, and symbolism help to develop

“Prejudices are the chains forged by ignorance to keep men apart.”(Marguerite Gardiner Blessington). Over the years, countless people have fallen in to the dark abyss of prejudice because they merely following the trend of society. Prejudice is exactly what it sounds like; its root words are firmly planted. Prejudice may be defined as the act of pre judging someone because of their race, religion, sex, ethnic background, or can be based solely on how they look. Prejudice is a flaw in society many have dealt with for centuries, but one race has suffered in the United States of America where “all men are equal”, more than any other race in history. If all men are created equal, how could we treat people of a different color so unjustly? It is a travesty that cannot be forgotten and that can not, must not, and shall not be repeated. In the book, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee states the truth behind a world with closed minds. She put the world into perspective through her commentary that is still relevant today. Through her writing, we see the compassion, sympathy, and tolerance, or the lack thereof, from all perspectives: a father, a racist man, a confused woman, children, negroes, and a dear lawyer named Atticus Finch.

Decades ago, in the 1930s, people of color were not treated fairly. Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird took place in the 1930s in the fictional place of Macomb County, Alabama. It was narrated through a young girl named Scout Finch. Throughout the novel, Scout, her older brother, Jem, and their good friend Dill discover realities of society. Scout and Jem’s father, Atticus, was appointed to be the attorney of a black man. Because of the time period, the case was almost hopeless, but Atticus fought anyway. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird displays universal themes such as racial intolerance and innocence of youth.

According to Discover The Networks, criminologist Michael Tonry wrote in 1995, “Racial differences in patterns of offending, not racial bias by police and other officials, are the principle reason that such greater proportions of Blacks than whites are arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned.” Even in these times, racism is still alive and present. It has gotten better, but there is a very real possibility that this is the most controlled it will get. Back in the early 1990’s, racism was legal. Today, it is not. Yet, there are still instances where even the government demonstrates racism. The attitudes between specific characters and communities, as well as the racism affecting the trials, show astounding similarities between Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and the Scottsboro case.

Profiling is an issue for the African Americans especially since the stereotypes linked to African Americans usually associate them with crime (Clarence 200). The African Americans have a higher possibility than the additional racial and ethnic groups to experience stereotypes as drug abusers or violent criminals. Even though the national surveys have established comparatively similar drug use rates among diverse racial groups, law enforcement targets the African Americans for drug crimes in totally unequal numbers from the start of the “war on drugs” by the federal government in the 1980s. There is a self-perpetuating cycle with racial profiling of Black Americans. When this group is arrested and incarcerated at completely outsized rates, they end up being stereotyped as offenders. The stereotype ends up justifying the profiling of African Americans by

The reason we perceive the word people to refer to African Americans is due to tactics used by the media when reporting on crime. Rather than report on crimes committed by blacks as well as by whites, “news stories regarding virtually all street crime have disproportionally featured African American offenders” (Alexander 106). As a result of the media’s inaccurate coverage of crime, our “racial schemas operate not only as part of conscious, rational deliberations, but also-automatically-without conscious awareness or intent” (Alexander 106). We have become conditioned to view African Americans as more likely to engage in criminal activities even though, for example, “African Americans constituted only 15 percent of current drug users in 1995, and they constitute roughly the same percentage today” (Alexander 106). Although this evidence proves that African Americans are not more likely to be drug users, people are hesitant in addressing this misconception for discussing issues about “race makes people uncomfortable” (Alexander 238). In particular, “police and prosecutors-like most

“All men are created equal”, one of the most ignored statements that our founding fathers wrote in the Constitution. People exercise prejudice everywhere in the U.S. Prejudice is a topic that is constantly revisited in Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. Her novel focuses on Scout, the daughter of Atticus Finch, living her life in the 1930s of rural Maycomb, Alabama. Scout witnesses the injustice and prejudice against many people, not only Negroes. The heat of prejudice rises when Atticus decides to defend Tom Robinson, a black who is going under trial for allegedly raping a white girl. Despite the clear evidence that Robinson is innocent,

One of the reasons our culture’s idea of justice needs to be reformed is because, race plays too much of a factor in how you are treated today in society. In her book, The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander states that “three out of four young black men can expect to serve time in prison.”(Alexander, Pg. 6) This shows of how a majority of the African American population is expected to be in jail at least once in their life. This is one of the reasons why black people tend to be afraid of the police. This is also important because, it clearly shows of how the black population is geared to be incarcerated. When I read

Race has been a dominant, defining factor in both the 20th and 21st centuries. It has been a reason for missed job opportunities, unequal treatment, harassment, and even murder. In today’s society, race discrimination is still having a heavy effect on the lives of individuals with different colors of skin. Although some progress has been made, the treatment of different races can be brutal still today. There are stories featured in the news everyday about the mistreatment of an African American or the stereotypical harassment of a hispanic person. What has improved, is the way society is handling these relations and discriminations of race. This improvement is clear when you compare the treatment of the victim in the 1930’s

African Americans still face many of the horrors they faced in the 1940’s. To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, is a book that takes place in the early 1940’s during a time of great segregation. The novel incorporates many hardships of black people during the 1940’s that can still be seen in today’s society. African Americans often faced prejudice in courtrooms and daily life that didn’t allow them to be treated equally. Many people during this time didn’t think that African Americans were people that deserved rights, so they didn’t give them any. This made life harder for the average black American. The prejudices African Americans faced in the 1940’s can still be seen today through conviction injustices and average pay rates, but, many people