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Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926, in
Monroeville, Alabama, a sleepy small town similar
in many ways to Maycomb, the setting of To Kill a
Mockingbird. Like Atticus Finch, Lee’s father was
a lawyer. Among Lee’s childhood friends was the
future novelist and essayist Truman Capote, from
whom she drew inspiration for the character Dill.
These personal details notwithstanding, Lee
maintains that To Kill a Mockingbirdwas intended
to portray not her own childhood home but rather
a nonspecific Southern town. “People are people
anywhere you put them,” she declared in
a 1961 interview.
In high school, Lee developed an interest in English literature. After graduating
in 1944, she went to the all-female Huntingdon College in Montgomery. Lee
stood apart from the other students—she could have cared less about fashion,
makeup, or dating. Instead, she focused on her studies and on her writing.
Transferring to the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, Lee was known for
being a loner and an individualist. She did make a greater attempt at a social
life there, joining a sorority for a while. Pursuing her interest in writing, Lee
contributed to the school’s newspaper and its humor magazine, the Rammer
Jammer. She eventually became the editor of the Rammer Jammer.
In her junior year, Lee was accepted into the university’s law school, which
allowed students to work on law degrees while still undergraduates. The
demands of her law studies forced her to leave her post as editor of
the Rammer Jammer. After her first year in the law program, Lee began
expressing to her family that writing—not the law—was her true calling. She
went to Oxford University in England that summer as an exchange student.
Returning to her law studies that fall, Lee dropped out after the first semester.
She soon moved to New York City to follow her dreams to become a writer.
No crime in American history-- let alone a crime that never occurred-- produced as
many trials, convictions, reversals, and retrials as did an alleged gang rape of two
white girls by nine black teenagers on a Southern Railroad freight run on March
25,1931. Harper Lee was five years old when nine young black men were accused
of raping two white women near Scottsboro, Alabama. The original nine young black
defendants were accused of raping two white women on a freight train, and eight
were quickly convicted in a mob atmosphere. The juries were entirely white, and the
defense attorneys had little experience in criminal law and no time to prepare their
cases. As each of the nine cases successively went to the jury, the next trial was
immediately begun. All but one of the defendants were sentenced to death on rape
convictions. It was eventually established that the men were all innocent by which
time they had served between 6 and 19 years in prison.
Many prominent lawyers and other American citizens saw the sentences as spurious
and motivated only by racial prejudice. It was also suspected that the women who
had accused the men were lying, and in appeal after appeal, their claims became
more dubious. There can be little doubt that the Scottsboro Case, as the trials of the
nine men came to be called, served as a seed for the trial that stands at the heart of
Lee’s novel.
The story of the Scottsboro Boys is one of the most shameful examples of injustice
America’s history. It makes clear that in the Deep South of the 1930's, jurors were not
willing to accord a black charged with raping a white woman the usual presumption of
innocence. In fact, one may argue that the presumption seemed reversed: a black was
presumed guilty unless he could establish his innocence beyond a reasonable doubt. The
cases show that to jurors, black lives didn't count for much.
The Scottsboro boys with their lawyer, under guard, 1932.
The American Civil War (1861 – 1865)
The American Civil War took place between 1861 and 1865. It
occurred when a group of Southern states, including Alabama,
formed the Confederate Sates of America and broke away from the
main union of states. After four years of bitter fighting they were
defeated and rejoined the Union. One of the results of the Civil War
was the end to black slavery when the 13th Amendment finally freed
all slaves in the Southern states.
Although in theory the Negroes were equal to the whites, in fact
most of them continued to live separate lives, reluctantly accepting
their inferior status. To Kill a Mockingbird is set in the 1930’s, yet by
the this time – seventy years since the end of the war – the
situation for Negroes had hardly changed. Negroes were still
segregated. When Lee wrote the novel in the 1950’s things had
begun to change, with civil disturbances and rioting proving that
the black people were no longer prepared to put up with their
inferior status.
Segregation - The policy or practice of separating people of different races,
classes, or ethnic groups, as in schools, housing, and public or commercial
facilities, especially as a form of discrimination.
The Great Depression
• The Wall Street Crash of 1929 caused many shares suddenly to become
worthless and poverty swept the country.
• The Great Depression lasted from the end of 1929 until the early 1940’s.
• In 1933, at the worst point in the Depression, more than 15 million
Americans – one-quarter of the nation’s workforce – were unemployed.
• President Roosevelt made substantial attempts at economic recovery.
After the National Recovery Act, Roosevelt told the people ‘they had
nothing to fear but fear itself’. However the strategies he put in place took
time to lift the depression.
Franklin D. Roosevelt – 32nd president of
the United States.
In Office from 1933 to 1945
The Black Civil Rights Movement
• The Civil Rights Movement took place in Alabama during the 1950s and 1960s.
• Efforts made to guarantee African Americans equal access to public and private
transportation, schools, voting booths, economic opportunities, and housing caused
tremendous social turmoil all over the South, where legal discrimination against black
Americans was most pronounced.
• From Alabama emerged two of the leading figures in the struggle. Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. came to prominence here as a spokesman for African Americans seeking
equality, while Governor George C. Wallace became the symbol for white resistance to
racial integration.
• Boycotts, demonstrations, and protest marches by Civil Rights activists provoked
sometimes violent responses from whites determined to resist integration.
• In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, making it illegal for
any American to be discriminated against.
On December 1, 1955, Rosa
Parks, a black seamstress, was
arrested for refusing to obey a
Montgomery bus driver's order
to give her seat up for a
boarding white passenger as
required by city ordinance.
Some blacks sat at “all
white” lunch counters and
others rode “freedom” buses
through the south where
they helped others in the
fight for equal rights.
Many whites also believed in
equality for all. Together, blacks
and whites, marched for Civil
Rights.
The Ku Klux Klan (The KKK)
Men in an organization called the
Ku Klux Klan used terror and
cruelty to frighten African
Americans. They did not want
them to try to be equal in any
way.
The Ku Klux Klan even
used murder as a tool
of terror.
In August 1955, fourteen-year-old
Chicagoan Emmett Till visited
relatives in Mississippi. At Bryant's
Grocery and Meat Market, a store
owned by a white couple, Roy and
Carolyn Bryant, Till is said to have
whistled at Mrs. Bryant. Several days
later, on Aug. 28, Till was kidnapped,
brutally beaten, shot, and dumped in
the Tallahatchie River.
The Mockingbird is the most significant symbol in
the novel.
It represents an innocent, gentle, harmless
creature.
Thus, to kill a mockingbird is to destroy innocence.
Miss Maudie explains that
they are neither harmful nor
destructive and only make
nice music for people to
enjoy.
Atticus tells the children
“Shoot all the bluejays you
want, if you can hit ‘em, but
remember it’s a sin to kill a
mockingbird”.
Many characters in the novel
can be identified as
mockingbirds, mainly Tom
Robinson and Boo Radley.
A Motif is a repeated theme, image or
character which gives the work a symbolic
structure. The mockingbird is a motif in the
novel.
The story is set in a small town in the southern state of Alabama. Although the town,
Maycomb County, is fictitious, there are references to real places. The state capital,
Montgomery, is referred to on several occasions as is reference to the industrialised
northern part of the state and the rural southern part, where Maycomb is situated.
Maycomb
Maycomb is a small town in Alabama. Most of the population and that of the
surrounding community are poor. The population has remained virtually
unchanged for decades, with the result that newcomers are not accepted
easily.
Cars are few, cinemas non-existent. The people are very religious, mainly
Baptist or Methodist. Everyone knows everyone else and local gossip is
rife.
The Negroes are segregated and most people want them to remain so.
Anyone who does not conform to accepted patterns of normal behaviour,
like Boo Radley or Dolphus Raymond, is regarded as an oddity. So little
happens that major events such as the rape trial are regarded as a day out
for the whole county. Maycomb is a “tired old town” that is long overdue a
change.