Similarities Between Scottsboro Trial And To Kill A Mockingbird

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Navya Madan Mrs. Kannon English 9G 2 May 2024 A halt in due process due to system racism Tom Robinson is a character from Harper Lee’s well-known novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. Robinson was unfairly declared guilty in a court case involving the rape of Mayella Ewell, a girl from a poor white family. Scout Finch, the daughter of Atticus Finch, narrates the trial and the context around it from her perspective as a child. In this trial, various improper conduct occurred such as an all-white jury and no medical evidence. In this novel, Lee observed the problem of systemic racism present in the judicial system appearing in the 1931 Scottsboro case as well as the case of the Groveland Four, encouraging her to create the character of Tom Robinson in …show more content…

Overlooking clear testimonies is a strong sign that this all-white jury made an impact on the conviction of the boys. No powerful evidence displayed that this rape had occurred, and they not only were convicted, but sentenced to life. The Scottsboro Boys case exemplified blatant racial injustice with a systemic background and lack of due process which persisted in the American legal system, as nine African American teenagers were falsely accused due to flaws that were integrated into the judicial system. The case of the Groveland Four, one similar to the Scottsboro Boys case, demonstrated pervasive systemic racial injustice faced by African Americans in 1949. In the case of the Groveland Four, four black men (Charles Greenlee, Ernest Thomas, Walter Irvin, and Samuel Shepherd) were accused of raping a white woman in Florida. In a New York Times article, Jacey Fortin explains how shortly after, Thomas was killed, and the other three were arrested, beaten, and found guilty (Fortin). These three men were convicted by an all-white …show more content…

This opinion is the opinion of many currently, and since the case occurred in the 1940s, many have spoken out. Later, due to doubt regarding the primary witness in this case as well as the unconstitutional unfair jury, the men were exonerated, but all posthumously. Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, heavily demonstrates the idea of systemic racism in the judicial system, through a case quite similar to the one of the Scottsboro Boys and the Groveland Four. Tom Robinson, a black man, is being put on trial for the rape of a white girl, Mayella Ewell. The lawyer for this case, Atticus Finch, is expressing his frustration after the loss of Robinson. He remarks “There’s something in our world that makes men lose their heads—they couldn’t be fair if they tried. In our courts, when it’s a white man’s word against a black man’s, the white man always wins. They’re ugly, but those are the facts of life” (Lee 224). In this quote, Finch is irritated because presenting such substantial evidence in court to a white jury did not affect the outcome of the case. Robinson would not have been able to perform the crime due to his crippled left arm, and there was no medical evidence to present the possibility of

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