Historical Background for To Kill a Mockingbird By Harper Lee

“ I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." Dr. Martin Luther King

“Jim Crow” Laws From the 1880s to the 1960s most states enforced segregation through the “Jim Crow” laws named after a black-faced character in minstrel shows. Through these laws legal punishments could be imposed on people for having contact with members of another race.

Jim Crow Guide 1. A Black male could not offer his hand (to shake hands) with a White male because it implied being socially equal. Obviously, a Black male could not offer his hand or any other part of his body to a White woman, because he risked being accused of rape. 2. Blacks and Whites were not supposed to eat together. If they did eat together, Whites were to be served first, and some sort of partition was to be placed between them. 3. Under no circumstance was a Black male to offer to light the cigarette of a White female -- that gesture implied intimacy. 4. Blacks were not allowed to show public affection toward one another in public, especially kissing, because it offended Whites.

Jim Crow Guide 5. Blacks were introduced to Whites, never Whites to Blacks. 6. Whites did not use courtesy titles of respect when referring to Blacks, for example, Mr., Mrs., Miss., Sir, or Ma'am. Instead, Blacks were called by their first names or by “boy” or “girl” (regardless of age). Blacks had to use courtesy titles when referring to Whites, and were not allowed to call them by their first names. 7. If a Black person rode in a car driven by a White person, the Black person sat in the back seat, or the back of a truck. 8. White motorists had the right-of-way at all intersections.

After the Civil War, The Ku Klux Klan was formed as a secret society that promoted white supremacy using violence and terrorism to undo the gains that former slaves had made. The Ku Klux Klan was originally organized in the winter of in Pulaski, Tennessee as a social club by six Confederate veterans. However, after the 1920s the KKK was no longer secretive about their work and public violence against Blacks, including lynching, became common occurrences.

Served the broad social purpose of maintaining white supremacy in the economic, social and political spheres Frequently committed with public display-often advertised in newspapers and drew large crowds of white families Lynchings were covered in local newspapers with headlines spelling out the horrific details. Photos of victims, with exultant white observers posed next to them, were taken for distribution in newspapers or on postcards. Body parts, including genitalia, were sometimes distributed to spectators or put on public display. Most infractions were for petty crimes, like theft, but the biggest one of all was looking at or associating with white women. Many victims were black businessmen or black men who refused to back down from a fight.

In the South, an estimated two or three blacks were lynched each week in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In Mississippi alone, 500 blacks were lynched from the 1800s to Nationwide, the figure climbed to nearly 5,000.

Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi, on August 24, 1955, when he reportedly flirted with a white cashier at a grocery store. Four days later, two white men kidnapped Till, beat him and shot him in the head. The men were tried for murder, but an all-white, male jury acquitted them.

After WW1 Even though Blacks had fought bravely for the US in WW1, they returned home from Europe to find the same, if not worse, discrimination and segregation. The economic struggles of the 1930s seemed only to worsen the situation.

Langston Hughes ( ) “Will V-Day Be Me-Day Too?” …I am a Negro American Out to defend my land… I’ve seen my buddy lying Where he fell. I’ve watched him dying I promised him that I would try To make our land a land Where his son could be a man – And there’d be no Jim Crow birds Left in our sky… So this is what I want to know: When we see Victory’s glow, Will you still let old Jim Crow hold me back? …will Dixie Lynch me still When I return?…

The Great Depression (1930s) The Depression hit the South especially hard Everyone seemed to be living in poverty Americans turned away from the rest of the world and away from each other During these years of turmoil, discontent started to grow in the minds of Whites and Blacks alike.

- Worst and longest economic collapse in the history of the modern industrial world, lasting from the end of 1929 until the early 1940s - Effects of the Great Depression… -rapid declines in the production/sale of goods -a sudden, severe rise in unemployment; -In 1933, at the worst point in the depression, more than 15 million Americans— one-quarter of the nation’s workforce— were unemployed. -Businesses and banks closed their doors -People lost their jobs, homes, and savings -Many depended on charity to survive. -25 percent of all workers and 37 percent of all nonfarm workers were completely out of work Who knows what the nation’s unemployment rate is today?

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Hoovervilles As people lost their jobs and savings, mortgages on many homes and farms were foreclosed. Homeless people built shacks and formed shantytowns, which were called “Hoovervilles” out of bitterness toward President Herbert Hoover, who refused to provide government aid to the unemployed.

The Dust Bowl Natural forces inflicted another blow on farmers. Beginning in Arkansas in 1930, a severe drought spread across the Great Plains through the middle of the decade. Once-productive topsoil turned to dust that was carried away by strong winds, piling up in drifts against houses and barns. Parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado became known as the Dust Bowl, as the drought destroyed the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of small farmers. Packing up their families and meager possessions, many of these farmers migrated to California in search of work.

What was it like growing up during the Great Depression?  Families unable to pay the mortgage lost their homes and farms. As a result, about 250,000 young people were homeless in the early years of the Depression. Many became nomads, traveling the highways and railways.  20% of America's children were hungry and without proper clothing.  Children went without shoes and warm clothes for the winter.  Thousands of schools had to close down because they lacked the money to stay open.  About 3 million children between the ages of 7 and 17 had to leave school, many to go to work.

To Kill a Mockingbird It is in this setting that the novel To Kill a Mockingbird takes place. In a small town, in the deep South, in the early 1930s

TKAM—Society at that time… A definite class structure existed Upper and middle class whites lived in nice neighborhoods. (The Finch family)

TKAM—Society at that time… Lower class whites lived on the outskirts of town in rundown shacks. (The Ewell and Cunningham families)

TKAM—Society at that time… African Americans lived even farther away from civilization. Often many generations shared a home.

Characters Scout Finch-- the protagonist and narrator Semi- autobiographical character Lee would have been the same age as Scout at the time the novel took place. Lee’s father was a lawyer like Scout’s father. Lee’s hometown of Monroeville shares similarities with Maycomb.

Atticus Finch—Scout’s father (a widower) An attorney Respected in the community Characters

Characters Jem Finch—Scout’s older brother Dill—Scout’s friend who lives with his aunt in the house next to the Finches during the summer months Calpurnia—The Finch’s housekeeper and caretaker of Scout and Jem Boo Radley—a very mysterious neighbor These are the first characters introduced. Be sure to add to the character list as reading continues…

What is a mockingbird? The Texas state bird, which does not have its own song. Instead, it imitates the songs of other birds. Killing a mockingbird is illegal. In the novel, the mockingbird is an important symbol of innocence destroyed by evil.

Harper Lee (1926-) To Kill a Mockingbird is her only novel. Submitted TKAM in 1957; rejected Spent two and one-half years revising In 1960, TKAM published to widespread acclaim. Pulitzer Prize—1961 Movie version won four Academy Awards--1962

Brown vs. Board of Education In 1954, after 2 years in court, the nation was shocked by a landmark decision to grant Linda Brown, a Black fifth- grader, admission into a white elementary school in Topeka, Kansas. The decision engendered feelings of triumph and outrage across a country that had lived under the weight of racial segregation and discrimination for over 100 years.

The Winds of Change Soon, average Black citizens across the country began speaking out against oppression and demanding equal rights. This was the beginning of America’s Civil Rights Movement.

Rosa Parks ( ) In 1955, after a long day of work, 42- year-old Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery County bus This set off peaceful and violent protests throughout the South.

Television Changes Everything By this time, many families had televisions and as images of Southern race riots and violent protests reached into American homes the magnitude of Southern racism began to sink into the American consciousness. Moreover, the rest of the world began to frown upon America’s treatment of Blacks, and segregation, like slavery, became a national embarrassment for a country who had fought in two world wars as great liberators of the down-trodden masses.

Dr. Martin Luther King ( ) Black Hero- Leaders began to rally together Black Americans in order to fight oppression and for a country where all men were truly treated as equals.

Desegregation A national and international call for desegregation of the South rang out and Blacks and Whites all over the country started putting pressure on governments to amend the segregation laws. Those individuals, both Black and White, who fought for Civil Rights were under constant attack from White Supremacists who were unwilling to accept Black Americans as equals Many freedom-fighters died for their efforts

To Kill a Mockingbird In the Fall of 1960, in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement, To Kill a Mockingbird was published. It shot to the top of the New York Times best seller list. A country was finally ready to listen to the story of segregation and open their minds to the possibility of an America where Whites and Blacks could live together as equals.