Reader's Guide (PDF)

Harper Lee's To Kill a and Jem's father, the attorney Mockingbird begins at the end. The Atticus Finch. The local judge novel opens with the adult Jean appoints him to defend a black Louise "Scout" Finch writing, man, Tom Robinson, who is falsely "When he was nearly thirteen, my accused of raping a white woman. brother Jem got his arm badly Atticus suspects he will lose the broken at the elbow." By the time case, but he faces up to the Jem finally gets around to breaking challenge just the same, at one his arm more than 250 pages later point heroically stepping between most readers will have forgotten his client and a lynch mob. they were ever warned. This echoes Along with its twin plot lines, To the way the whole book unfolds-in Kill a Mockingbird has two broad no special hurry, with lifelike themes: tolerance and justice. Lee indirection. Nothing happens all by treats the first through the children's itself. The book's two plots inch fear of their mysterious neighbor. forward along parallel tracks, only converging near the end. She illustrates the second with Atticus's courage in defending The first plot revolves around Robinson to the best of his ability, Arthur "Boo" Radley, who lives in a despite the racial prejudices of their shuttered house down the street small Southern town. from the Finches and is rumored to Tying the stories together is a be some kind of monster. Scout, simple but profound piece of advice Jem, and their next-door neighbor Atticus gives Scout: "You never Dill engage in pranks, trying to really understand a person until you make Boo show himself. consider things from his point of Unexpectedly, Boo reciprocates view.... Until you climb inside of their interest with a series of small his skin and walk around in it." By gifts, until he ultimately steps off the end of the novel, Scout has done his porch and into their lives when exactly that-guessed at the pain not they need him most. only beneath Tom Robinson's skin, The second story concerns Scout but also under that of her neighbor. NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS • THE BIG READ 1 "Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I don't pretend to understand." —Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird Former slaves and their children modes of transportation. Laws had little assurance that their post- against miscegenation or "race- Civil War freedoms would stick. mixing" deemed all marriages By the 1890s, a system of laws between white and black people and regulations commonly not only void but illegal. Almost referred to as Jim Crow had as bad as the injustice of Jim Colored Drinking Fountain circa 1939 by Russell Lee, Farm Security Administration/ emerged; by 1910, every state of Crow was the inconsistency with Library of Congress the former Confederacy had which law enforcement applied it. challenging Jim Crow. usual presumption of innocence. upheld this legalized segregation Backtalk would rate a laugh in In January of 1932, the Alabama and disenfranchisement. Most one town, and a lynching just over All this anger and fear led to the Supreme Court affirmed seven out scholars believe the term the county line. notorious trials of the "Scottsboro of eight death sentences against the originated around 1830, when a Boys," an ordeal of sensational adult defendants. A central figure Though violence used to white minstrel performer convictions, reversals, and retrials in the case was an Atticus-like subjugate blacks was nothing blackened his face, danced a jig, for nine young African American judge, James E. Horton, a member new, its character changed under and sang the lyrics to the song men accused of raping two white of the Alabama Bar who Jim Crow. Southern white "Jump Jim Crow." At first the women on a train from Tennessee eventually defied public sentiment supremacist groups like the Ku word was synonymous with such to Alabama. The primary to overturn a guilty verdict. terms as black, colored, or Negro, Klux Klan reached a membership testimony came from the older but it later became attached to this of six million. Mob violence was woman, a prostitute trying to Despite these and many more specific arsenal of repressive encouraged. Torture became a avoid prosecution herself. injustices, black Americans found laws. public spectacle. White families ingenious ways to endure and Juries composed exclusively brought their children as resist. Education, religion, and of white men ignored clear During the Jim Crow era, state witnesses to lynchings, and music became their solace and evidence that the women had and local officials instituted vendors hawked the body parts of salvation until, in the organized curfews for blacks and posted victims as souvenirs. Between suffered no injury. As in To political action of the Civil Rights Kill a Mockingbird, a black man "Whites Only" and "Colored" 1889 and 1930, over 3,700 men Movement, Jim Crow's harsh charged with raping a white signs on parks, schools, hotels, and women were reported lynched music finally began to fade. water fountains, restrooms, and all in the United States, many for woman was not accorded the 2 NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS • THE BIG READ NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS • THE BIG READ 3 Despite her father's hopes that she came. Lee later researched a book, would become a local attorney like similar to Capote's In Cold her sister Alice, Lee went to New Blood (1966), about a part-time If Nelle Harper Lee ever wanted playground. She talked back to York to pursue her writing. minister in Alexander City, proof that fame has its drawbacks, teachers. She was bored with Alabama, accused of killing five she didn't have to look farther than school and resisted any sort of She spent eight years working odd people for their insurance money her childhood neighbor, Truman conformity. The character of Scout jobs before she finally showed a and later himself murdered by a Capote. After her enormously in To Kill a Mockingbird would manuscript to Tay Hohoff, an victim's relative. However, she successful first novel, she has lived have liked her. In high school Lee editor at J.B. Lippincott. At this dropped the project in the 1990s. a life as private as Capote's was was fortunate to have a gifted point, it still resembled a string of public. English teacher, Gladys Watson stories more than the novel that In the meantime, To Kill a Burkett, who introduced her to Lee had intended. Under Hohoff's Mockingbird has sold more than Nelle-her first name is her challenging literature and the guidance, two and a half years of thirty million copies in eighteen grandmother's spelled backward- rigors of writing well. Lee loved rewriting followed. When the languages. In 2011, President was born on April 28, 1926, in nineteenth-century British authors novel was finally ready for Obama awarded her the National Monroeville, Alabama. Her best, and once said that her publication, the author opted for Medal of Arts. According to mother, Frances Cunningham ambition was to become "the Jane the name "Harper Lee" on the biographer Charles J. Shields, Lee Finch Lee, was a homemaker. Her Austen of south Alabama." cover, because she didn't want to was unprepared for the amount of father, Amasa Coleman Lee, be misidentified as "Nellie." personal attention associated with practiced law. Before A.C. Lee Unable to fit in with the sorority writing a bestseller. Ever since, she became a title lawyer, he once she joined at the University of To Kill a Mockingbird was has led a quiet and guardedly defended two black men accused Alabama, she found a second published in 1960 to highly private life. As Sheriff Tate says of of murdering a white storekeeper. home on the campus newspaper. favorable reviews and quickly Boo Radley, "draggin' him with his Both clients, a father and son, were Eventually she became editor-in- climbed the bestseller lists, where shy ways into the limelight-to me, hanged. chief of the Rammer Jammer, a it remained for eighty-eight weeks. that's a sin." So it would be with quarterly humor magazine on In 1961, the novel won the Pulitzer Harper Lee. From her, To Kill a As a child, Harper Lee was an campus. She entered the law Prize. Though fans of the book Mockingbird is gift enough. unruly tomboy. She fought on the school, but she "loathed" it. waited for a second novel, it never 1930’s-1960’s: Harper Lee and Civil Rights The 1930s The 1940s The 1950s Over 25% of labor force unemployed during Jackie Robinson signs baseball contract Brown vs. Board of Education rules school worst years of the Great Depression. with the Brooklyn Dodgers, 1947. segregation unconstitutional. Franklin D. Roosevelt wins President Truman ends segregation in Rosa Parks refuses to surrender her bus presidency with promise of the military and discrimination in federal seat to a white man in Montgomery, his "New Deal," 1932. hiring. Alabama, 1955. The Scottsboro Boys trials Harper Lee moves to New York City to Lee accompanies Truman Capote to last from 1931 to 1937. become a writer. Kansas as "researchist" for his book Nelle Harper Lee is four In Cold Blood. years old when they begin. The Jackie Robinson Story circa 1950 NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS • THE BIG READ 5 Truman Capote Life Photo Archive Nelle Harper Lee and Truman New York to work at becoming a Capote became friends in the early becoming a writer, too.

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