Compare And Contrast Scottsboro Boys And To Kill A Mockingbird

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“[T]here is one way in this country in which all men are created equal- there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller; the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court” (Lee 233). These are the words uttered by Atticus Finch, an important character in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Atticus is a lawyer, and at this point in the novel, he is trying to defend Tom Robinson, a black man who was accused of raping a white woman. This reflects upon how society was in the 1930’s, when the color of your skin affected your chances of winning a trial. In fact, it is speculated that To Kill a Mockingbird is loosely based off of the trials of the Scottsboro Boys, a famous case from this time period. Most of the main characters associated with both trials share similar traits, experiences, and backgrounds.
Before jumping into the comparisons, the story of the Scottsboro Trials is needed to know what is being compared. …show more content…

The first similarity is that all of the girls were the supposed "victims" of their own case. Victoria herself "testified that six raped her, and six, Ruby Bates" (Ransdall, "The First Scottsboro Trials"). Mayella also stated that she was the one raped and beaten by Tom before he was caught. The second similarity is that Mayella and Victoria both tried to avoid future conflicts by being inconsistent and evasive. A description of Price 's cross examination stated that she "remained sarcastic, evasive, and venomous. She used her ignorance and poor memory to her advantage and proved to be a difficult witness to corner" (Linder, “The Trials of the Scottsboro Boys”). Similarly, Mayella used her ignorance to her advantage as well as her tendency to cry as a way to win the jury

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