Examples Of Racial Injustice In To Kill A Mockingbird

Prejudice, not Pride The novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, takes place in the small southern town of Maycomb, Alabama. Atticus chooses to defend Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white woman. Tom should have easily been proven innocent, but due to discrimination, he was convicted. During the build up to the trial, Mrs. Dubose makes a racist comment about Atticus, and it was Jem’s last straw. At first Jem is enraged, but he soon learns to forgive her. Also, the tension from the court case causes an attack on Scout and Jem where Boo Radley comes to the rescue to save their lives. The cascade of events triggered by Tom Robinson’s trial in To Kill a Mockingbird reveals Lee’s messages of racial injustice, forgiveness, and

After Francis makes fun of Atticus for defending a black man in court, Scout clarifies with Atticus by asking if he truly is a “nigger-lover.” To her surprise, he responds saying, “‘I certainly am. I do my best to love everybody’” (108). Atticus takes pride in his decision to fight for Tom Robinson by proving he is not affected by Francis’s racist comment. He holds his head high and proves to Scout that siding with Tom was the right thing to do despite the conditions. Atticus firmly believes “this case is as simple as black and white” (203) and Tom should have been treated equally. His race should not have been a deciding factor for the outcome of the trial, but sadly, it is undeniable that Tom’s black skin determined his fate. On the other hand, Barack Obama, the first African American president of the United States, confronted prejudice along his way to becoming the Commander in Chief. In one of Obama’s pre-presidential speeches, he says “I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve these [discriminating] challenges of our time unless we solve them together.” During his campaign he faced many rude racist remarks, but Obama did not let that shut him down because he believes in equal rights and freedom. He won the election because of his political ideas, and on January 20,

Boo Radley has stayed inside his house for a majority of his life. However, when Scout and Jem need help, he puts their needs ahead of his, leaves his house, and defends the children from the attacker, Bob Ewell. When Scout returns home the night of the attack, she “wondered why Atticus had not brought a chair for the man in the corner” (266). Boo Radley, “the man in the corner,” had the audacity to leave the comfort of his house to protect the children by stabbing Bob Ewell, even though he is afraid of the outside world and wants to remain in the corner, unseen. It is difficult to step outside a comfort zone, yet Boo Radley displays a tremendous level of courage when he leaves his home for the first time in years to rescue Scout and Jem. Acts of courage do not only exist in literary works. In August 2015, a series of large storms hit San Antonio, causing flash floods. 25 year old, Dustin Rowen, a strong swimmer, risked his life to save three people during the flood. One of which was Jena Davis, a woman trapped in her car about to drown to death. Rowen’s “first rescue was an elderly woman, then a man, then out of the corner of his eye, he caught [Davis] freaking out’” (Baldas 3). By this time Davis’s car was almost completely covered in water, and the doors would not open due to the high pressure. Rowen was on top of a shelter, when he spotted Davis struggling in her car. He bravely left the safety of the rooftop,