Racial Discrimination and Injustice in the South

1626 Words4 Pages

Racial Discrimination and Injustice in the South 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. The most significant event that led up to the way that blacks of the time were treated was the Civil War. Even though it was not solely fought to end slavery it left a bitter taste in the mouths of all southerners. Until the war the black race was seen solely as another object for the more prosperous whites in the south to own. After the war the southerners could not handle the fact that the blacks were also people. This led to the horrible way they were treated. The fact that blacks were tortured and killed for insignificant reasons led to more resentment toward the whites from the blacks. This then led to more hatred aimed toward the blacks. “Two Negroes were dragged from the courthouse in little Statesborough, Georgia, today and burned at the stake by an angry mob” (Daniel 68). Incidents such as this did not make the blacks want to cooperate very much. “White planters vowed to rid their neighborhoods of those they call ‘obnoxious Negroes’” (Daniel 68). No matter how much the whites did not like their neighbors they had no right to kill them because of where they lived nor should they have made them move. “In recent days, some Negroe... ... middle of paper ... ...hat afternoon. They found him guilty because they wanted to find him guilty. Unfortunately in the south in the early part of the nineteenth century blacks did not have a chance. They did not have a chance of finding a decent job, an education, a fair trial, and most importantly they did not have a chance to have much of a life. Works Cited Daniel, Clifton ED. Chronicle of the 20th century. Mount Kisco: Chronicle Publications, 1987. Kirshon, John ED. Chronicle of America. New York: Dorling Kindersley, 1995. Johnson, Claudia. Understanding To Kill A Mockingbird. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994 . Lee, Harper. To Kill A Mockingbird. New York: Warner Books, 1960. Taylor, JP ED. Purnell's History of the 20th Century. New York: Purnell, 1971. Trager, James. The People's Chronology. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1992.

Open Document