Sergio Sanchez English 10 Ms. Tran May 14, 2014 Dont Be Told How To Live Your Life, Choose And Stand Up For Your Freedom Being African American in the 1930’s, how free you were was determined by the half you lived in - the North or South. In that time period there was a significant amount of racism, segregation, and prejudice occurring. However, racism was on a whole different level in the South than it was in the North of the United States. In the North colored people had rights like freedom of speech, but in the South they had no rights. In the book To Kill A Mockingbird the author, Harper Lee, did a wonderful job of vividly portraying how Negro’s lived in the South, particularly in the state of Mississippi in Maycomb county. In the society of Maycomb white folk hated the blacks. For many people racism changed their life dramatically. The grass really was greener on the other side for colored folks - the North. For Calpurnia, Tom Robinson, and Mr. Dolphus Raymond racism dramatically affected their lifestyle. Colored folks lived with other colored folk and the white people lived with other white people.The Finch family was an exception. They were a white household with a rare trait, their housekeeper is black. This was rare because in that society white people did not interact with black people. Calpurnia, the housekeeper, is portrayed to act like a mother to Mr. Finch’s kids, Jem and Scout. She teaches them right from wrong and even takes them to church. Calpurnia is not like the rest of the colored folk, she can read and write properly. This, however, causes her to live a double life when she is around other black people, because then the blacks will think Calpurnia likes the white people better than her own race. Since s... ... middle of paper ... ...go against his own people and live with the colored. Although racism is not a s violent and unfair as it was in the 1930’s, it still exist today. In To Kill A Mockingbird black people were poorly treated compared to everyone else. Whether you’re Calpurnia, Tom Robinson, or Mr. Raymond, you had to deal with the painful racism and adjust your lifestyle to it. They were forced to live life a way they wouldn’t have to if people agreed to treat each other equally. Black people didn't have freedom in the South like they did the North. Today everyone is treated equally, supposed to at least, because people like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. stood up for what they believed in. People in Maycomb didn't have to live that way if only they stood up for eachother. One voice makes a difference, but many voices makes a change. Racism is something we have to change.
Similar to Atticus, Calpurnia takes a stand against racism and believes everyone is equal. Due to Atticus’ and Calpurnia’s morals toward racism, Jem and Scout are heavily influenced by their views, and will most likely take after them. Calpurnia seeks every opportunity possible to educate Jem and Scout that racism is unacceptable. For example, Calpurnia takes the children with her to her black church called First Purchase, and because of this, the children are able to better understand the vast separation of race. Scout learns that not only are white people prejudice, but black people are also prejudice. Most of the negroes at First Purchase were very welcoming as the three entered except for Lula who made them feel unwelcome. "You ain't got no business bringin' white chillun here—they got their church, we got our'n” (136). Clearly, Lula is prejudice towards white people, similar to how white people are prejudice towards black people. In addition to these prejudice ways, Scout realizes how differently Calpurnia acts around her folks. Calpurnia stated that talking white folks in her church would be “out of place”, and how “folks don’t like to have somebody around knowin’ more than they do” (143). As a result, Calpurnia talks colored-folks’ at her church so she fits in with everyone else, rather than speaking more advanced, which ultimately shows
Equality is something that should be given to every human and not earned or be taken away. However, this idea does not present itself during the 1930’s in the southern states including Alabama. African Americans faced overwhelming challenges because of the thought of race superiority. Therefore, racism in the southern states towards African Americans made their lives tough to live because of disparity and inhumane actions towards this particular group of people.
“Naw, Jem. I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.” (Lee, page 304.) This is one of the famous quotes in the book To Kill a Mockingbird. In the book there is an important character named Calpurnia. Calpurnia is the Finch’s housekeeper and cook. Calpurnia is also the bridge between the whites and the blacks for the Finch family children, she is an important female role model, and she also teaches the children important lessons on respect, kindness, logic, and finally discipline. Without Calpurnia, the book would not be the same.
He lets Calpurnia, a black woman, take care and act as a mother to his. children. They are all children. This, though, is not really seen by the people of Maycomb. To the people of Maycomb, Calpurnia is merely a housekeeper; but she's.
Students today should be informed about the racials tensions and struggles that black people faced in the 1930s. To Kill A Mockingbird explains the difficulties of the racial divides of that time. In the book there were several different racial
First of all, contrasting the book, the movie never shows or hints to the scene where Jem and Scout go to Calpurnia’s church with her. It can be seen that the respect directed at the Finches by the blacks grows throughout the story as Atticus is defending Tom Robinson, a black man. However, it is also made known that not every black person has respect for the Finches. The importance of the church scene shows both of these statements to be true as many people in Calpurnia’s church don’t mind having Jem and Scout, white children, around; they even welcome them. The other side of the coin is shown when Calpurnia has to defend the children when she gets into a bout with Lula while having Jem and Scout at the church. It also seems as though some characters have been left out of introduction such as Reverend Sykes, who is the preacher at Calpurnia’s church. The director of the movie rejected this scene since there is an alternative instance of black people d...
Racial inequality provided everyone their status in life. As a white person, you had rights and privileges. As a black person, you had nothing in life. “The wide discrepancy between the funding for white and black schools. The attempts to withdraw even that little money from black schools in order to fund white and the obvious even virulent racism of the school systems, brought the southern issues into the forefront as the Great Depression deepened” (J. Stakeman, and R. Stakeman). With kids being segregated, they are shown the inequality between the two races. This generates stereotypes that would be passed on to the next generation, producing a cycle that won’t end unless action is taken. Black people weren’t considered important in the 1930s. Lynching portrayed the unimportance of black people towards white people. In the 1930s, mobs frequently slaughtered black people without legal trial. “The first politician to take a visible stand against lynching was President Harry S. Truman, in 1946. Shocked by a lynching in Monroe Georgia, in which four people—one a WORLD WAR II veteran—were pulled off of a bus and shot dozens of times by a mob, Truman launched a campaign to guarantee CIVIL RIGHTS for blacks, including a push for federal anti-lynching laws “ (lynching). African Americans were easily targeted in lynch mobs due to their status in life which was not as superior as to white people. Inequality among the people
Jem and Scout are going to Calpurnia’s First Purchase church for the first time. Jem and Scout are the children of Atticus, a prominent white lawyer in Maycomb, and Calpurnia is their African American cook and nanny. Scout, the narrator, is describing her less-than-flattering view
To Kill a Mockingbird takes place in a rural southern town in the 1930s, when racism was commonly accepted. Blacks were
The 1930’s were a time in which blacks faced many hardships. It was a time in which the Ku Klux Klan had its peak. However, most importantly, it was the time when Nelle Harper Lee, the writer of To Kill A Mockingbird, was being raised. She was raised in a world where “niggers'; were the bottom class in one of the most powerful countries in the world. She was also being raised during the Great Depression, a time when the attacks on blacks were intensified, as they were the scapegoats of the immense downfall of the US economy. However, she was only a small, innocent child who believed in equality for all. Thus, Harper Lee expressed her disapproval over the treatment of blacks in her Award-Winning novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, through the eyes of a fictional character called Jean Louise Finch, better known as “Scout';.
She is a colored woman and in Maycomb County, colored people are not considered people to most, but unlike the rest of Maycomb County, the finch family did not see them that way and respected colored folks as they would white people. Calpurnia is a huge supporter of the Finch’s and is like a mother to Jem and Scout, since their mother died when Jem and Scout were very young.... ... middle of paper ... ...
As in To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee there was a great deal of injustice in the south in the early 1900s and before. Things only seemed to get worse when the depression. “We were always poor, but the Depression was definitely worse”(Johnson). The fiction in the book could very well be based on real facts of the way the blacks were treated in the past. Blacks of the time could not get a fair chance in real life or in the book. For that reason Tom Robinson could never have gotten a fair trial in Alabama in the 1930’s.
Although most discrimination appears as white people against African American people, there is one case where the discrimination appears as African American people against white people. On a Sunday when Jem and Scout’s father, Atticus, is not home, Calpurnia, their cook, takes the two children to her church. Once there they were confronted by a woman named Lula. She is racist against white people, and shows it by saying, “‘I wants to know why you bringin’ white chillun to n***er church’” (Lee 158).
First, racism in the 1930s was were hard on some people excel black people. Black people were used to do things they did not what to do.In the attcule Racism in the 1930s America said “Whites and blacks were segregated in 1930s America and blacks were considered as 2nd class citizens. Black people were paid less than their white counterparts and they had to work harder than everyone else, often given the more dirty work”. I got this in OxNotes in paragraph 1. It tills you that some slaves had to do the work they did not what to do.
Racism presents itself in many ways in the town of Maycomb. Some are blatant and open, but others are more insidious. One obvious way that racism presents itself is in the result of Tom Robinson’s trial. Another apparent example is the bullying Jem and Scout had to endure as a result of Atticus’s appointment as Tom Robinson’s defense attorney. A less easily discernible case is the persecution of Mr. Dolphus Raymond, who chose to live his life in close relation with the colored community.