Prejudice In To Kill A Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird is filled with characters who have Maycomb’s usual disease: racism, prejudice, and gossip. The few people who haven't caught the very contagious opinions are the ones affected by it as well as Atticus, Scout, and Jem. The portion of this community without the infection is a minority, and can be symbolized as mockingbirds because they are innocent and have a clear conscience. Maycomb’s usual disease is possessed in almost all of its citizens, and is responsible for killing the small amount of mockingbirds left in the town, who may suffer from severe isolation and/or false conviction and death. This has been partially cured with time and protest to create a society with better morals, however, the new opinions have

This meant that an epidemic of unrightful thoughts, as well as acts of superiority, filled the south, specifically Maycomb County. The plague was first mentioned when Uncle Jack and Atticus are talking about the trial after Scout begins to get heat from others about her father. Atticus expresses his opinions on it: “I hope and pray I can get Jem and Scout through it without bitterness, and most of all, without catching Maycomb’s usual disease… reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up.” (Lee 117) When he says this he is saying that logical and fair-minded people go crazy when a black person comes into the picture, and that he hopes that Jem and Scout do not catch on. In the novel, this illness is found in almost all of its citizens excluding a small minority of the town who can be

A cure may not even be possible for this as there is no way to force people to have opinions without violating their given rights. Time, as well as activism, has greatly assisted many in realizing that there is no difference between people of different races. To Kill a Mockingbird took place in the 1930s. Ten years following, starting in the 1950s, a period of African-American Civil Rights Movements took place with the institution of many passionate “mockingbirds,” but the fight took time. The first major mark in fighting against the disease was when racial segregation was declared unconstitutional by the U.S Supreme Court. However, many would not accept the fact that this was a plague, and as a result was resistance. In 1955, Martin Luther King Jr. was elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, which was a group that consisted of activists. For example, this group ran a year-long boycott against the segregated transportation system, which resulted in the Supreme Court ruling segregated transportation unconstitutional in the Gayle vs. Browder case (1956). Congress then passes the Civil Rights Act of 1957. This established the Federal Civil Rights Commission, a Civil Rights part of the Justice System, and allowed for a federal prosecutor to object with any interference