Similarities Between To Kill A Mockingbird And The Scottsboro Boys Trial

Harper lee wrote a novel to kill a mockingbird. The novel is about racism and what is right and what is wrong. The Scottsboro Boys were an influence on the writing if lee’s writing To Kill a Mockingbird. The nine African American teenagers accused in Alabama raping of Ruby Bates and Victoria Price on a train in 1931.The scottsboro trial was one of many subjects that Harper lee talked about in her novel.

Mayella vs. Victoria: To Kill A Mockingbird vs. Scottsboro Trial “He couldn’t get us to the chair fast enough.” Haywood Patterson a young black boy accused of raping two young girls named Victoria Price and Ruby Bates said this during his trial. Patterson said this about the judge of the case he was involved in. This was in the Scottsboro trial where a group of black boys was accused of raping the two young girls Victoria and Ruby. This same topic is brought up in the book To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee when a young lady named Mayella Ewell accuses a black man named Tom Robinson of raping her.

In the 1930s, there were many conflicts because African Americans were always the ones to get blamed by the prejudicial people who lived in Alabama. When the Scottsboro case was happening, Harper Lee was six years old. So thirty years later, she had written a book based on the Scottsboro case. Nine black men had been accused of rape by a white woman, and in To Kill a Mockingbird, there was one black man who had been accused of rape by a white woman. Harper Lee was inspired by the Scottsboro Boys’ case when writing her novel due to the similarities between them.

TKAM/Scottsboro- Final Paper Racism has been a major social issue in our modern world. From many years ago to today, there has been discrimination among many. Nine young african american men were accused of rapping 2 white women in 1931 (Scottsboro Boys) and a black man was accused of rape in To Kill a Mockingbird. The men were falsely convicted due to the fact that they were black men and the victims were white women.

Racism and Vengeance Humans judge others on how they look, where they come from, or just plainly who they are; it is human nature. Everyone judges someone at some point in their lives, but how far are people willing to take their judgement. In the 1930’s, at a time when racism was at its peak, nine black boys got in a freight train fight with a couple white vagrants. The boys’ consequences were fatal.

In today’s world, many people live their lives by the way they are influenced by society. People nowadays are influenced by society in many ways. They are influenced by the way other people react to certain situations, any news they see in the media, or just the way they were raised by their families. With the victims of the Scottsboro trial and the novel To Kill a Mockingbird you can see how all these things plays an effect on the way Mayella, Ruby, and Victoria are shaped and you will see how the character, Mayella, relates to the non-fictional victims of the Scottsboro trial. During the trial in both the fictional and non-fictional cases society plays a big role on shaping the people involved as victims.

To Kill a Mockingbird shows that while justice will always exist, it often isn’t distributed fairly. Harper Lee shows this in the book through Mr. Ewell and Mayella’s reason to accuse Tom Robinson, Atticus’s closing argument about how

When do you decide that racism is not just a collection of non-isolated isolated incidents? When instead does it become a whole system set up for the benefit of a particular segment of society?” (Baylor). The trial of the Scottsboro Boys is an example of racial injustice and discrimination at its peak. The infamous trial of nine black teenagers who were accused of raping two white women spread like wildfire across the South, which had been polluted with racism by Jim Crow and years of slavery that had come to an end.

Comparison between The Scottsboro Trials and The Crucible “The last Scottsboro Boy is released from prison 45 years after the wrongful conviction” (Scottsboro Boys). In 1931, nine young, black men were on a train, yet at the same time, two women, who were dressed like men on the train, claimed the nine black men had raped both women. All nine men were tried, with eight receiving the death sentence, and the youngest receiving life in prison. There are striking similarities between the Scottsboro Boys and The Crucible, including how there was no evidence produced at either trial, the consequences given to the innocent were unreasonable, and the unfair justice used in both trials involving race and social class. Both in the Scottsboro Boys

The Scottsboro Trails last two decades that came along with wasted lives, ended careers, people being made into hero’s, and opening southern juries to the blacks. Much like in To Kill a Mocking Bird, The Scottsboro Trails society shaped everything and everyone around them. In this case, how did society shape Mayella Ewell, Ruby Bates, and Victoria Price into victims and accuser? Mayella Ewell and Ruby Bates are in many ways similar victims unlike Victoria Price. In the Mayella’s story she was from a very small prejudice town during the depression.

The novel ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, as well as empirical research, prove that the Scottsboro Trials positively impacted the Civil Rights movement. According to an article titled, “Scottsboro Trials”, the Scottsboro Trials of the 1930s left a lasting impact on Civil Rights in America. In April of 1935, the United States Supreme Court declared that the

The justice system has always been the heart of America. But like this country, it has many faults. Prejudice has played a major role in the shaping of this system. In the 1930’s the way a courtroom was set up was completely different from how it looks to day. In the book To Kill A MockingBird, Harper Lee shows just how different it is.

In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the Maycomb court system is totally biased in a discriminatory way. The case of Tom Robinson, if it had not been in this court with its racist jurors, would certainly have not ended the way it did. It only ended the way it did because of peer-pressure, a scared victim being manipulated and believed, and an honest man not. Through her testimony, Mayella Ewell constantly lied.

Imagine one day being wrongfully accused of a crime and sent to jail without a fair trial or even a proper representative in court. That seems a little unjust, does it not? Unfortunately, many people in the past were imprisoned and killed for crimes they did not commit like in the Salem Witch Trials or the Scottsboro Trials. Even though the Salem Witch Trials and Scottsboro Trials were over two-hundred years apart, there are many similarities between them.

The Tom Robinson trial has many similarities and numerous differences to the Scottsboro trial. In both cases, black men were falsely accused of rape by white people. Also in both trials, there was no physical evidence of rape, the only evidence of rape was the ‘victims’ of the crime. Next, in both trials, the defendants were convicted only because they were black and the jury had racial prejudice against them. Several differences between the two cases were Tom being the only defendant in the Tom Robinson Trial case, meanwhile, there were nine teens in the Scottsboro Trial case.