Tom Robinson is Proved Guilty Before Trial In the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, Tom Robinson, the black man falsely convicted of rape, had absolutely no chance of a fair trial. There is proof of this in the time period in which it occurred as well as evidence from the novel itself. Tom Robinson had an unfair trial because it was his word against the Ewell’s, a white, trashy family. To Kill A Mockingbird took place in the 1930’s, a time that was enormously charged with racial tension. One example of this is the existence of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Even though the KKK was in a time of decline in the 1930’s, it had been very prominent in the 1920’s and had still not completely died out. The KKK had rallies and marches. They even marched in Washington D.C. several times. They burned crosses on the lawns of any white person who would show favor towards blacks in an effort to scare them away from helping black folks. The KKK was an extremely violent group. “While African-Americans still bore the brunt of much Klan violence, Jews and Catholics topped the enemy’s list, followed by immigrants and those who transgressed Klan’s vision of morality” (“History”). The KKK showed their violence in several ways. Lynchings occurred very frequently as did raids of people’s homes. Although not all lynchings were caused by the KKK most of them were. Lynchings were held very often in the South during the time when the KKK was prominent. During these lynchings, people were often pulled from their homes at night, beaten within an inch of their lives, and sometimes they were hanged or burned alive. These lynchings occurred most frequently among black people although white people were lynched as well. After t... ... middle of paper ... ...case. The fact that the trial took place in the 1930’s in the South put automatic guilt over Tom Robinson’s head. He did nothing wrong, but that was not enough to convince the jury of his innocence. Works Cited Chalmers, Allan K. They Shall Be Free. Garden City: Doubleday & Company, 1951. "History of the Ku Klux Klan: The Second Era of the Ku Klux Klan, 1915, 1944." HateWatch.org. 13 Feb. 2001. http://www.hatewatch.co.uk/klan/2nd_era1.html. Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York: Warner Books, 1960. "Scottsboro Case." 1999-2000. Encyclopedia Brittanica. 11 Mar. 2001. http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/printable/2/0,577,68092,00.html. Pansdell, Hollace. "Report on the Scottsboro, Ala. Case ." American Civil Liberties Union 27 May 1931. 11 Mar. 2001 http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/scottsboro/SB_HRrep.html.
Charter Schools are best known for combining traits and features of both public and private schools. Charters schools are not restricted to many of the rules and policies put on other public schools (Gale 1). For example teachers are given more free reign in charters, and they are not expected to stick to a certain curriculum. Because there is no specific criteria in place for teachers of charter schools, pay scales do not have to be followed for teachers and administrators. Also, charters are publically funded and have specialized accountability for producing certain results.
Even though the Brown v. Board of Education was 62 years ago, African Americans are still fighting to have an equal education opportunity. “But many schools are as segregated today as they were before the ruling, and black children throughout the United States are performing at the bottom of the American educational system” (Jackson 1). Nevertheless, it took decades of hard work and struggle by numerous African Americans for a better education system. Education is the key to success, it gives people the knowledge that they need to strive and become more intelligent thinkers, which leads to more opportunities for them in the job industry. Ever since the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned discrimination of any kind, African Americans have every right to have this equal educational opportunity like everyone else. But yet, they were stopped in their tracks by disapproving Americans, who confined the succession of African Americans in the education system. Now that we are in the 21st century, there’s still negligence on black’s education. The black community do not have equal education opportunities because of the lack of funding, poverty experienced by the children in the neighborhoods and society’s views of the black community.
Throughout the novel To Kill A Mockingbird, Atticus Finch was put to the test to defend juvenile Tom Robinson, an African American falsely accused of raping a white woman. Atticus fought long and hard and had he and Tom Robinson been guaranteed the right to a fair trial, they would have won. Atticus’s closing argument rendered countless pieces of evidence and did in fact catch the attention of the jury; but even in the beginning, the decision was clear. Although Atticus lost the trial, his argument was effective due to his excessive use of Aristotelian techniques.
In the early twentieth century, the United States was undergoing a dramatic social change. Slavery had been abolished decades before, but the southern states were still attempting to restrict social interaction among people of different races. In particular, blacks were subject to special Jim Crow laws which restricted their rights and attempted to keep the race inferior to whites. Even beyond these laws, however, blacks were feeling the pressure of prejudice. In the legal system, blacks were not judged by a group of their peers; rather, they were judged by a group of twelve white men. In serious court cases involving capital offenses, the outcome always proved to be a guilty verdict. In Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, the plot revolves around a Depression-era court case of a black man accused of raping a white woman. The defendant Tom Robinson is presumed guilty because of one thing alone: the color of his skin.
The first wave of the Ku Klux Klan was the founders. This band of brothers lasted from 1866 to 1874. Their goal was to restore the white supremacy by using violence and threats, including murder against blacks, which later spread to including other racial groups. They took on the look of all white with masks and robes to complete their look and hide their identities when “attacking,” usually at night. Some of the members in the Klan claimed to be the ghosts of the Confederate solders to frighten superstitious blacks. At the end of 1867, there were one hundred ninety-seven murders and five hundred forty-eight cases reported of assaults. In April 1868, 1,222 Republican votes were casted but by the ...
The issue of whether charter or public schools are more beneficial for students has been an ongoing debate. The question that arise is which type provides a better education. Having gone to a charter high school myself, I got to see and experience first-hand the benefits of going to a charter school as well as realizing the issues charter schools face here in Oklahoma. These problems need to address in order to guarantee that students are getting the best education that they can get. We are facing an epidemic today with our education system and charter schools could be the solution. There may be opponents to the idea of having charter schools, but they have been wildly successful lately and are quickly expanded throughout the states. This is due to the fact that charter schools can benefit people economically, educationally, and as well as socially.
Charter schools, which exist all over the United States, are “rooted in the premise of public, free education nestled in the ideas of parental choice” (Pardo 6). Since “Minnesota launched its first charter school in 1991”, charter schools have experienced “an enormous increase in number to over 5,300 by 2011” (Chen). Like traditional public schools, charter schools are “funded with public money” (Chen). However, parents have to “submit a separate application to enroll their children in charter schools, and spaces are often limited” (Pascual). Each charter school has an independent governing board that oversees finance (Pardo 6). Enrollment is based on choice, with parents selecting schools due to their specific focus, curriculum or other features (Pardo 7). When enrollment is exc...
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.
Rousseau defines the general will as concerning “only the general interest,” saying it can be arrived at by taking all individual wills and “[removing] … the pluses and minuses” from each to “cancel each other out” (437). He doesn’t say what parts of individual opinion are “pluses and minuses” however. Rousseau’s outlook on humanity seems to be overwhelmingly positive in this case, since he assumes that people will need no specific guidelines to lead “good” political lives. This faith in humanity is where his arguments become weak.
Segregation in educational institutions taking place in the United States is not often talked about. People may consider apartheid schooling taking place presently to a nation that does not respect basic human rights. Thus, the injustices taking place in public schools are not easily classified because it is commonplace to many. It can be argued that apartheid schooling was never completely dismantled in the United States. Jonathan Kozol’s book The Shame of the Nation (2005) provides evidence and insight to apartheid within the educational system that children are currently experiencing. The structure in children’s curriculum, the way they are spoken to as well as the funding public schools are funded are examples to the inequalities that children face. Conceptually, structural violence is what keeps educational injustices to recur.
In the court, the director leaves out the systemic racism that Harper Lee claims is the reason Tom Robinson is convicted of rape (Dave). The racist community, and a mob of white men, make up the deciding factor of the court. However, for someone watching the movie it would not be understood that the hatred expressed towards Atticus is for supporting a black man ("Overview: To Kill a Mockingbird"). The only reason Tom loses the case is because he is black and the movie underplays this as the reason.
Charter schools are unique. They are open to any student who wishes to attend. Unlike traditional public schools, they are held accountable for achieving educational results or their school will be shut down. So they don’t have bureaucratic rules and many of the restrictions that other public schools have to deal with. It is a public school that is independently run and is granted flexibility in its operations. Charter schools are governed by each local community. The local community usually includes teachers and parents. As public schools, they are the only schools that allow parents or community groups to reinvent the public school system. For the majority of parents, they want a positive atmosphere that will encourage their child’s
...ny underprivileged children the opportunity to receive a formal education, paving the way to an overall better future. However, those underperforming charter schools invite criticism from the public school system as their remarkably low test scores deem them unable to prove their worth or purpose of existence. This may leave some to question what the charter school system is able to achieve that the public school system cannot. While advocates of the public school system may not entirely agree with the effectiveness of the charter schools system, a couple of positives they are able to learn from the charter school structure are the concepts of flexibility and experimentation, as they are crucial to the learning process. While both systems of education differ greatly, their greatest commonality lies in their overall goal of aiding their students in reaching success.
...fects to one’s health or society as a whole. According to the simple model of supply and demand, decriminalization will lead to increase in consumption as well an increase in the supply. And since decriminalization does not lead to a market regulated by the government, the black market will continue to profit with none of the benefits going back to the government. Furthermore, by decriminalizing marijuana, the government is sending the wrong message to society. For example, people who were hesitant to try it due to the legal risks involved would be curious enough to try it as the legal risks have reduced to 0. And because the chemicals involved in marijuana are addictive, there is no given that the user would stop consuming it right away. Instead of decriminalization, the government should focus more on preventative measures rather than encouraging its consumption.
After the Civil War ended, the Southern states went through a time known as Reconstruction. Ex-Confederate soldiers had returned home now, and they were still upset about the outcome of the war. It is at this point in time that the Ku Klux Klan became a part of everyday life for many Southerners. In the beginning the Ku Klux Klan was started to be a way for people who had the same views to spend time together. The original members meant of the Ku Klux Klan to be a "hilarious social club" that would be full of aimless fun (Invisible Empire, p.9), though in later years the Ku Klux Klan became known for their violence against people outside the white race and people who associated with them. Contrary to what most people believe, the Ku Klux Klan was started because of a few people wanted to have some innocent fun, not because they were intending to start a chain of violence on anyone outside the white race.(The Klan, p.2)