1. Harper Lee The Scottsboro Trials
To Kill A Mockingbird
Harper Lee
The Scottsboro Trials

2. Background on Harper Lee
Largely autobiographical and like her character, Boo Radley, Lee has had one moment of notoriety, followed by years of privacy and silence.
born is Monroeville, Alabama, April 28, 1926
Third youngest of Amasa Coleman Lee and Frances Finch (surname of mom is the family name of the main characters).

3. Family life:
Atticus Finch (main character) modeled after father, Amasa (lawyer).
Maycomb, the setting in To Kill A Mockingbird is modeled after her hometown, Monroeville, Alabama.
Grew up during the Great Depression of the 1930s - much like Scout (narrator).

4. Childhood:
“Nobody had any money. We didn’t have toys…so the result was that we lived in our imagination most of the time.”
Childhood playmate - Truman Capote (Dill is modeled after him).
Although she loved writing, she had a passion for law.

5. Schooling:
Graduated public school, attended Huntington College and the University of Alabama. Went to Oxford University - exchange student.
Lee never earned law degree, but she feels that studying law gave her a logic and a lucidity helpful in her writing.
Settled in New York City - worked as an airline reservation clerk.

6. How did the story originate?
Showed “some tales of her childhood” to a literary agent, who urged her to put together a novel.
Events such as the Scottsboro Trials
Thus - To Kill A Mockingbird: Published in 1960.

7. Awards and Achievements
Best seller
Pulitzer Prize for fiction
Selected by both the Literary Guild and the Book-of-the-Month Club
Alabama Library Association Award
National Conference of Christians and Jews Brotherhood Award
Has a place amongst the great works in contemporary American literature.
Made into an Academy Award winning movie in 1963
Ranks #34 on AFI all time movie list.

8. What has she done since? Never published a novel again.
Kept writing essays for magazines like McCall’s and Vogue.
Self described as a slow writer.
It may be a summation of Lee’s life that she has found nothing else to write about.

9. The Scottsboro Trials
March 25, 1931: Police stop Southern Railroad train in Paint Rock, Alabama.
Scottsboro boys are arrested on charges of assault. Rape charges are added against all nine boys after accusations are made by Victoria Price and Ruby Bates.
The two women are underage; older one is a prostitute.
Both smuggling and trying to avoid problems.

10. The Scottsboro Trials Oldest was 19; youngest was 12.
Within one month of the first trial, the first African-American is sentenced to death. Others condemned.
Jury ignored evidence; wanted execution versus life imprisonment.
None of the accused were executed.
Central figure was second trial Judge Horton who postponed trials and set aside a conviction contrary to public outcry.
Not until 1977 was the case finally settled.

11. The Scottsboro Boys Charles Weems Clarence Norris Andy Wright
Ozie Powell
Olen Montgomery
Eugene Williams
Willie Roberson
Roy Wright
Haywood Patterson