The modern day novel and movie The Help shows many similarities that were portrayed in the classical novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Both The Help and To Kill a Mockingbird go into depth about the struggle humanity has been threw over the years. Although they both contain the same themes the way the authors create the situations and display the harsh reality of society’s make these two stories very different. During the depression prejudice was at its peak, with the Jim Crow laws and no rights for blacks it made it near impossible for the African American community to live a normal life. In the book To Kill a Mockingbird the rape trail of Tom Robinson vs Mayella Ewell, an African American man accused of raping a white teenage girl was held in a bias court room of Maycomb County.
These laws denied black Americans the equal rights of white citizens which re-imposed white supremacy and meant they remained as second-class citizens. It wasn’t only the Jim Crow laws but under the Fifteenth Amendment, black people had the legal right to vote throughout America. Nonetheless, the southern states found devious ways to disenfranchise the local black population. For example, some states introduced a grandfather clause, which meant that people could only vote if their grandfathers had been able to vote. Other states introduced literacy tests as criteria for voting.
Why was the second World war a turning point for black Americans? In WWII, African-Americans served in segregated units known as the ‘Jim Crow army” and were not allowed to fight alongside whites. The Nazis also had a policy of racial discrimination so African-Americans were sent to fight an enemy who saw them as lessor beings, yet the side they fought for also saw them that way too. It was a contradiction. President Roosevelt, former governor of New York, did not believe in racial segregation of African-Americans and when African-Americans were hired to drive buses in Philadelphia during the war, some residents refused to ride the buses others threatened to burn the buses.
Many Southern states were segregated, they followed the supreme courts decision in 1896; 'Separate but equal' this meant that they were still segregated but blacks had equal rights. Segregation was the separation of white people from black, some states tried to keep control over black people's segregation by; 'Jim crow' laws which kept black people segregated/separated from white, this involved separate schools, toilets and drinking fountains. Desegregation had become a problem in the 1950's, largely because of the racial hatred of white southerners towards blacks, this racial hatred had originated from the attitudes of white people towards black people after slavery was abolished in 1864, many southern states had 'Jim crow' laws which discriminated against African Americans. However, in 1954 the Brown family challenged these laws by suing the city school board for forbidding their 8 year old daughter, who was black, from attending the white school which was nearby, instead Linda Brown was forced to attend the segregated school which was a long distance away. The Brown family's case was brought to the Supreme Court by the NAACP; they were an organisation which fought for the rights of coloured people.
In What Ways Did Black Americans Secure Improved Civil Rights: 1945-1964? Black Americans had often been looked down upon by White Americans and always suffered racial prejudice. Their struggle for equal racial rights had begun from the end of slavery in 1865, only until the late 1960’s did significant improvement was made. Following the events and ending of World War II, Black Americans began what would become known as the Civil Rights Movement. In 1951, the father of a black student named Linda Brown sued the Board of Education because a white school had prevented Brown from attending a school which was only seven blocks away, compared to the segregated black school she was attending which was more than seven blocks away from her home.
To Kill A Mockingbird Analysis Social commentary is one of the driving forces of fiction writers. All have opinions of the society from in which they were reared causing many of their story driving characters to come from similar situations. One southern born woman, Harper Lee, followed this formula when writing her staunchly moral yet surprisingly youthful novel To Kill a Mockingbird. To Kill A Mockingbird is set in Alabama before civil rights cases flooded the benches of justices and cases against African-Americans were considered open and closed. Through To Kill A Mockingbird, the reader puts on the shoes of a little girl, Scout, and traipses through this familiar town and learns of social injustice by seeing it affect not only a member of the town, but her own father.
In 1896, the Court set forth its famous “separate but equal doctrine” which provided the facilities for blacks and whites were equal. But, this was not enough. African Americans were limited to their own separate facilities such as hotels, theaters, public restrooms, etc. They were barred from many hospitals, denied access to parks, beaches, and picnic areas. But, in 1875 the Civil Rights Act was passed prohibiting racial discrimination in public accommodations, forcing whites to share hotels, railroads, theaters, etc.
His family tried their best to mold him into a better man in order to survive the later years to come. Wright had to realize the harsh realities of the consequences of being a black man in the early 1900s. In that time, many blacks were tortured for the simple fact that they were not white. Black people experienced much violence. Jim Crow Laws promoted the idea that blacks were naturally mediocre to blacks in all important ways, including intelligence, morality, and civilized behavior.
Racial discrimination was very prevalent during the 1930's especially in the South. There are many examples of racial discrimination in this book. One example of this is when Jem is talking to Scout and Dill about Mr. Raymond's children. “They don't belong anywhere. Colored folks won't have 'em because they're half white; White folks won't have 'em cause they're colored so they're just just in-betweens, don't belong anywhere” (161).
The common good was affected one way by these because the majority population in the south was African American. The fact they could not vote caused a lot of problems, such the voting of local sheriffs and mayors. This caused in abuse of the police force. Dogs and even fire hoses that can remove flesh were turned on any demonstrators fighting for their right. Spartacus.com states, “The 1964 Civil Rights Act made racial discrimination in public places, such as theaters, restaurants and hotels, illegal.