To Kill a Mocking Bird Context

To Kill a Mocking Bird Context

1. Takes place in 1930, in Alabama

   • Published in 1960, just after civil rights took off

2. Slave Trade

   • Bought millions of Africans to work in America
   • Bought in slave ships and suffered awful conditions
   • Bought by white people, had no rights
   • Abolished in 1865, the idea that black people were inferior was normal

3. American Civil War

   • 1861-1865 between Northern United States and Confederate States of America
   • Main cause was disagreement over slavery
     • North wanted to abolish (won)
     • South wanted to keep
   • After abolished, in Maycomb, black people still didn't have equal rights
     • Wasn't entitled to education

4. Klu Klux Klan

   • Formed 1860's by white men who fought for Confederate States of America
     • Believed they were superior to everyone
       • Attacked and killed black Americans (and whites who had been on Northens side)

5. The Great Depression

   • Effected stock market and crop prices
     • Americans couldn't earn a living, average income dropped by 40% between 1929-1932
   • Atticus talks about depression when says that times are hard for people (Ewell's/Cunninghams)
     • Depression helps explain why people were racist in Maycomb, land owners like Cunninghams blamed end of slavery for loss of profit/land\status

6. Scottsboro Trial

   • Happened in 1931 (Harper Lee was 5)
   • Nine black men were accused of raping two white women
     • Despite medical evidence that women hadn't been raped, the all-white jury sentenced men (but youngest) to death
       • Men nearly lynched before trial