1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee “A novel of great sweetness, humor, compassion, and of mystery carefully sustained.” Harper’s Magazine “Skilled, unpretentious, and totally ingenuous…tough…acute, funny” The New Yorker “I’ve read and taught this book at least twenty-five times, and each time I learn and treasure something new.” Mrs. Johnson

2. Setting: Maycomb, Alabama 1930’s The Great Depression

3. Themes in To Kill a Mockingbird Coming of Age Prejudice Courage Guilt and Innocence

4. Everyone was poor during the Great Depression. Jobs and cash were scarce. This famous photograph by Dorothea Lange was taken in 1936. It shows a destitute mother of 7 children. 1

5. School in rural Alabama (1935) 2

6. A sharecropper family 3

7. Another sharecropper family 4

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9. Former slave, 65 years after the end of slavery 6

10. “First of all, if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” Atticus Finch (30)

11. What were Jim Crow laws? Jim Crow lawsJim Crow laws were racial segregation laws in the South that were imposed on African Americans. They were similar to Black Codes, which were laws restricting the movement and occupations of newly freed slaves after the Civil War (1861-1865). Jim Crow laws banned blacks from such places as restaurants, hospitals, parks, schools, and barbershops. As a result, blacks were required to use separate facilities or entrances. Black Codes

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18. "But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal - there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court. It can be the Supreme Court of the United States, or the humblest J.P. court in the land, or this honorable court which you serve. Our courts have their faults, as does any human institution, but in this country our courts are the great levelers, and in our courts all men are created equal." (Atticus Finch defending Tom Robinson)

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22. Effects of prejudice in the 1940: a school for African-American children. 15

23. 1950’s: photograph of an African-American student, newly-integrated into a formerly segregated school. 17

24. 1960’s: the cancer of prejudice continued 18

25. How do we create a just and fair society?’ How do we overcome our fears of people we see as “different”? How do we learn to recognize, and transcend, our prejudices? This book can help us to answer these questions. Enjoy and learn.