Examples Of Social Injustice In To Kill A Mockingbird

694 Words2 Pages

Steven Heidenreich
Mr.P
Freshman English
May 16, 2017
Racisms Error Throughout the book To Kill a Mockingbird there are many morals but, the moral of the story that prevailed was racism. The Author for this book Harper Lee, is a well known author for books on social injustices. In this book, To Kill a Mockingbird, there are injustices talked about such as ageism, sexism, and racism. The main character is a young white girl. Just from knowing that much about the main character she already fits two categories of people who are socially discriminated against. The basic plot of the book consists of a young girl who grows up with a father who is a lawer. This young girl's father takes a trial dealing with a black man being accused of raping a …show more content…

It is our church, ain't it, Miss Cal?”” (Lee 119). Lula is a member of the African-American First Purchase Church in the book. Calpirnia had brought the children she was watching to the church. They were white children which sparked a reaction to the regular churchgoers. From the way Lula, the member of the church, reacted to having seen white children come to her church shows that blacks and whites did not get along very well in the time period of this book. When Lula says that blacks and whites both have their own churches this also shows that the people were segregated to the point that they had to meet in different buildings to practice the same religion. As well as this quote showing segregation of the people it also shows that no matter what age people were their skin color determined how others treated them. This is shown because the children Lola is upset with are children and she is upset with them because they were white and they came to a black church. Later in the book when Atticus, the main character's father, has taken the case of a black man, although he knows he will most likely lose the case, Atticus …show more content…

"You know the truth, and the truth is this: some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men are not to be trusted around women—black or white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men. There is not a person in this courtroom who has never told a lie, who has never done an immoral thing, and there is no man living who has never looked upon a woman without desire"(Lee 204). Atticus states this as an argument in his trial defending his black client. Atticus wants to show to the jury that just because his client Tom, is black that doesn't mean he is a bad person. He tells them that their idea of thinking that way is as illogical as saying someone is bad just because they are human. He wants the jury to understand that Tom is a person and they need to determine from the evidence if he is good or bad, not just from his skin color. Just the fact that Atticus had to explain this concept to the jury shows that in the past other blacks had been unfairly punished. Biased jurors show that racism was a very big issue during the time era in this book contributing to racism being the main social injustice in this book. Although today the world we live in is

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