Racism In Kathryn Stockett's The Help And To Kill A Mockingbird

In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, and the Scottsboro Trial the African-American community was degraded while the rest of society would not speak of any racial tensions because of their belief that they were contributing to their own communities. In The Help the African-American women of Jackson, Mississippi would take care of the white children, to a point where the children may even consider their “help” of a part of their family than their own parents, along with trying to take care of their own families. In To Kill a Mockingbird Tom Robinson is convicted of the rape of Mayella Ewell on the assumption that all black men are evil and can do no good. In the Scottsboro Trial, nine African-American teenagers

The Scottsboro Trial which was during the Great Depression had many racial issues began to bubble up, which contributed to the outcome of the cases. The Help and To Kill a Mockingbird, on the other hand, took place during the Civil Rights Movement where you could not turn a corner without seeing some sort of racial segregation or protest, for or even against African-Americans. In all three, however, different communities were forced to face the tensions between the unsettled issue of racism in the South and the white society during different time periods.

Racism was the biggest issue of the 1960’s and in Jackson, Mississippi it was a time of mistreatment and neglect for African-Americans, to a point where they did not get the say they deserved. The wealthier section Jackson, which was made up of all whites, had the female African-American be their maids which, they referred to as the “help”. The “help” were supposed to do everything from changing the children’s diapers to making dinner for the family every night. At the end of the day, they had to also take a bus ride to their homes on the opposite side of town and take care of their own families. The white people in town expected to wake up, have

Alexandra Finch, more commonly known as Aunt Alexandra, came into Maycomb wanting everyone to act how she thought fit, and she found a group of women who thought the same, in the missionary society. The missionary society was filled with racists, who wanted everyone to have all traits of what they thought it meant to be a boy or girl, they all came from the right families, with the right amount of money, and all being of the right race for Alexandra, white. The women did not care about what they said or who they said it too. They referred to Helen Robinson, Tom’s wife as “darky’s wife” also, Mrs. Merriweather complained about paying her maid, saying that she has been acting "sulky", and that she should be grateful for any money that she receives. The missionary society shows what is wrong with the South while Scout and others show that there is hope for the South. Scout along with Jem and Dill did not understand why Tom was convicted, and why people were protesting that Atticus drops the case. When the case finally comes, it rocked the entire community, because it means that they finally are forced to confront their issues of racism, and, this time, it has a legal outcome. After each testimony, from Heck Tate to Mayella Ewell, it is obvious that Tom has done nothing