Examples Of Tom Robinson's Trial Fair In To Kill A Mockingbird

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Unfair Trials of the 1930s In To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, colored people are treated unfairly. The setting of the book takes place in Alabama in the 1930s. Back then trying to win a trial as a colored person was nearly impossible. Nowadays colored people are treated more fair than Tom Robinson was. But what makes this topic relevant to American students now? The American justice system has changed a lot in the past eighty-seven years making Tom Robinson’s trial unfair. In the 1930s there was no Civil Rights Act. “The Civil Rights Act of 1964…” (Civil Rights Act). The Civil Rights Act makes it so that people of all races, color, sex, etc. are all treated fairly in daily life. “... which ended segregation in public places and banned …show more content…

Luckily for Tom Robinson, Atticus was a very dedicated lawyer and did not care for what type of ethnicity he was defending “I’m simply defending a Negro” (Lee 86). Even though Atticus had proven all the facts to the jury, “... this case is as simple as black and white” (Lee 231) they still voted Tom guilty of all charges. The jury was all white making it so that the colored man, Tom Robinson, would be guilty. Because of this Tom Robinson would die later in the book. In Tom Robinson’s trial, even getting a semi-fair trial was lucky for him. Most states in America would not have given a colored man a fair trial. A colored man would be wrongfully accused, most of the time. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Robinson was wrongfully accused. “Guilty… guilty… guilty… guilty…” (Lee 211). This is unimaginable to recent generations of the American people. Today, in this generation, getting a fair trial is normal to the majority of people, but Tom Robinson never got one.
Tom Robinson never got a fair trial because of his ethnicity. Laws in the past few decades make it so that everyone can get a fair trial. Because Tom was colored, he was discriminated and treated unfairly in his trial. It is possible that if Tom Robinson’s trial was in this day and age, he would be alive. Changes in the law or the way people think of someone different, may save that person’s

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