Think about the historical information below. What influences from these historical events do you see in these chapters of To Kill A Mockingbird?

The historical info:

Segregation

Even though the Civil War systematically ended the issue of slavery, it did not end the issue of racism in America. America, throughout the Reconstruction period after the Civil War, saw the formation of the Ku Klux Klan and great efforts to continue the oppression of African Americans who were recently freed from slavery. Some people in the Southern states, the former Confederacy, wanted to keep former slaves separate from the white community and began to pass state laws, or “black codes,” that would do that. These codes would purposely limit the freedoms of those who were former slaves.

The Freedmen’s Bureau was a government agency created on March 3, 1865, after the Civil War, to assist black and white refugees in the defeated Confederacy. It was headed by Union Army General Oliver Otis Howard and staffed by white Union officers. The Freedmen’s Bureau functioned as an employment agency as a mediator between blacks and whites in the early years of Reconstruction. It also helped the former slaves reunite with their families separated by slavery, established hospitals, and set up schools with around 10,000 teachers and nearly 250,000 African American students. President Andrew Johnson tried to kill the bureau by veto, but Congress overrode the president’s veto on July 16, 1865.

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was also passed in spite of the president’s attempted veto. This act itemized the civil rights granted to all persons born in the United States (except Native Americans), including the right to make and enforce contracts, to sue and give evidence, and to inherit, purchase, and convey real and personal property. The weakness of this act, however, was that it did not apply to state-enforced segregation laws. It also did not apply to public education or public accommodations, such as restaurants and hotels.

Unfortunately, even though the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was a start to ending racial segregation, members of the Ku Klux Klan disregarded the law and what protection the act provided. President Johnson then worked actively to undermine the operation of the Freedmen’s Bureau by appointing pro-Southern white officers to the bureau. Congress, unwilling to fully support equal citizenship for the formerly enslaved, allowed the bureau to die in 1869. Segregation became more entrenched by separating the African American community from the white community. As the years progressed, segregation became more permanent.

Jim Crow Laws

Jim Crow laws were unjust statutes practiced in the Southern and border states from around 1877 through the 1960s that severely regulated social interaction between races. They were commonly defined as unofficial, unwritten social laws that a community was expected to follow in order to keep the peace. Essentially, the Jim Crow system was substantiated by the incorrect and unethical belief or rationalization that white people were superior to other races in all important ways, such as intelligence, ethics, and civilized behavior. All social rules enforced in a community could be falsely justified by this basic rationalization. There were also differences between Jim Crow etiquette, which was enforced only by social customs, and Jim Crow laws (which you will read about below). The following are some examples of Jim Crow etiquette that existed in some communities:

• A black male could not shake hands with a white male because it implied being socially equal.
• 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.
• Jim Crow etiquette prescribed that blacks were introduced to whites, never whites to blacks.
• Whites did not use courtesy titles of respect (such as Mr., Mrs., Miss, Sir, Ma’am) when referring to blacks. Instead, blacks were called by their first names. Blacks had to use courtesy titles when referring to whites and were not allowed to call them by their first names.
• If a black person rode in a car driven by a white person, the black person sat in the back seat, or in the back of a truck.

Jim Crow laws stated that African Americans had to follow these basic etiquette rules:

• Never assert or even imply that a white person is lying.
• Never impute dishonorable intentions to a white person.
• Never suggest that a white person is from an inferior class.
• Never lay claim to, or overly demonstrate, superior knowledge or intelligence.
• Never curse a white person.
• Never laugh derisively at a white person.
• Never comment upon the appearance of a white female.

Actual Jim Crow laws were more specific in excluding non-whites, mostly African Americans, from public transportation and facilities, jury duty, voting, jobs, and certain neighborhoods, to name a few examples. The idea of “separate but equal” came about after the court case Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), when the courts ruled that segregation was legal as long as African Americans were given accommodations that were separate but equal to those of whites. For example, African Americans had to be provided a free and public education, but they could be segregated from white students as long as the respective schools were equal. However, no one enforced quality of accommodations, so educational facilities for African Americans were often substandard, with poor materials, if any.

The Scottsboro Boys

During the 1930s, nine African American youths (ages thirteen to nineteen) were falsely accused of assaulting two white women. Their trials, in which the boys were convicted and sentenced to death by all-white juries, attracted national attention. The two young women had been dressed as men when they jumped a freight train for a free ride, even though jumping trains was illegal. The nine boys were already on the train at the time. When the train stopped, the two women were afraid of getting in trouble for not having tickets and for being caught with African American men. So they concocted their inflammatory story, and the boys were taken into custody. The governor of Alabama had to call in the National Guard to protect the boys in jail but promised a speedy trial and executions.

In less than a month, the “Scottsboro Boys” were indicted by the grand jury and sentenced to death, except for the thirteen-year-old, who was sentenced to a life in prison. The NAACP and the Communist Party became involved and filed for an appeal, but the state supreme court affirmed the convictions. However, the US Supreme Court overturned the convictions and ordered new trials.

By then, one of the women had recanted her testimony on the stand and admitted that the other woman had convinced her to lie so they wouldn’t get in trouble for not paying the train fare. But the all-white jury still convicted the African American youths. The nation was paying attention, and many still refer to the Scottsboro Boys when blatant injustice is served based on race.

Many people assume the infamous Scottsboro Boys’ case (1931)—so named because it took place in Scottsboro, Alabama—was the inspiration for To Kill a Mockingbird. This belief arose because Harper Lee's childhood in Alabama and the age of the main character in her novel correspond to the time of the Scottsboro Boys case. Because the Scottsboro case would have been widely discussed, many think this is a safe assumption. Certainly, people in Monroeville, where Harper Lee grew up, would have been talking about it. However, it is possible that because Monroeville is so small, its citizens would have adopted an attitude of, “That’s what happens out there.” Harper Lee limited her novel's setting to small Southern institutions, and she confines her motifs to the concept of personal face-offs and personal battles. Because things are so personal in the novel, she could have set her sights on a court battle that was similar in some ways to the Scottsboro Boys case but closer to home.

Walter Lett

On November 9, 1933, a white woman told authorities in Monroeville, Alabama, that an African American man named Walter Lett had assaulted her. He had been arrested for his own “safekeeping” from lynching parties. In Monroeville, the woman was poor and not considered to be of “good family.” But the most important fact to the citizens was that she was white and the alleged assailant was African American. Whether her story was true, sadly, was immaterial. In fact, while Walter Lett sat in jail for six months waiting for trial, many witnesses came forward saying he had been nowhere near the location she had alleged the assault had taken place. Walter Lett testified that he did not even know the woman. It didn’t matter. By the time the trial was over, the all-white, all-male jury had found Lett guilty and sentenced him to death by electrocution. The citizens of Monroeville, including Harper Lee's father, were greatly disturbed by the verdict and the sentence. In fact, A. C. Lee spoke out adamantly in favor of having the sentence overturned. However, all of his efforts were too late.

The prison Walter Lett was sent to was several miles away from Monroeville, which was not conducive to quick correspondence. He did not know that many people back home were working on a stay (or stopping) of execution for him. Unfortunately, the prison guards were eager to fulfill their obligations to the state in conducting executions, and Walter Lett’s cell was close to the electrocution room, which was not soundproof. While he waited for his turn to be executed, not knowing what was happening in Monroeville in regard to his own stay of execution, he had to listen to two or three different groups of electrocutions. By the time the judge agreed to stay the execution and change the sentence to life in prison, Walter Lett had suffered a mental breakdown. After being examined by the prison doctor, he was sent to the Searcy Hospital for the Insane, where he later died of tuberculosis.