The Black/Coloured Community In To Kill a Mockingbird

How Does Harper Lee Present The Black/Coloured Community In To Kill A

Mockingbird?

To Kill a Mockingbird tells the story of a white lawyer who defies all

others to defend a black man in a rape scandal. This may not sound so

strange in present day society; however, in the 1930’s (where the book

is set) this was considered a great crime.

The book was written by Harper Lee during the 1950’s in America, and

coincided with the civil rights movement. At this time in history,

racism played a very important role in society. There was a lot of

racial hatred between black and white civilians, and this ultimately

led to skirmishes and fatalities.

It is set in a small town called Maycomb, in Alabama, one of the

Southern States. Although Maycomb is a fictitious place based on Lee’s

own home town of Monroeville, real places and towns such as Montgomery

are referred to in the novel. As I mentioned above, there are a lot of

factors which explain the attitudes of the people towards each other

throughout the book.

Between 1933 and 1935, there was an economic depression within

America, and more importantly, within its more poverty stricken

states. This caused many shares to suddenly decrease and lose value,

and subsequently poverty swept the country. But perhaps the most

influencing factor for Harper Lee was the Black Civil Rights Movement

in the late 1950’s. This in my view led to Lee’s novel, which is a

mixture of nostalgia, criticism and perhaps guilt-typical of a white

Southern American author of the time.

Also, the apartheid played an important role in the novel. The

apartheid was a social system enforced by the white governments in the

twentieth-century. Under apartheid, black majority of people were

segregated and were denied political and economic rights equal to

those of whites. This included such things as black people sitting at

the back of busses, away from white citizens. In Maycomb, we see an

apartheid like effect throughout the story, and much more in the Tom

Robinson trial sequence. We even hear of blacks living in separate

quarters to white people, and this creates a sort of stereotype of

blacks.

Maycomb is a small town within Alabama itself, and was microcosm (sort

of representative) of American society during the 1930’s. It is a town

concerned in its own matters and dilemmas, and we do not hear anything

about the rest of Alabama or in America throughout the entire novel.

The novel, in a way makes a social comment that black people should be

treated with the same rights and responsibilities as white people.

This is turn created a sort of fear towards black people, as they were