Why did Harper Lee select and omit certain components of each case to create Tom Robinson’s?
Mai Do
"'The witnesses [are white, and are able to] ... [present] themselves to [the] gentlemen [of the jury] in the cynical confidence that their testimony [will] not be doubted, confident that [the jury will] go along with them on the assumption - the evil assumption - that all [African Americans] lie, that all [African Americans] are basically immoral beings, that all [African American] men are not to be trusted around [white] women, an assumption one associates with the minds of their caliber'" (Lee 204).
Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird less than a decade prior to the peak of the American Civil Rights Movement in 1963, hoping to change views of African Americans through her story and facilitate progress of the movement. Aiming to convey the injustice in the Alabama courts when a white man’s word was heard against an African American man’s, Harper Lee chose certain components of different court cases involving African American men accused of raping white women in order to prove that the social views of African Americans at the time were oftentimes false. Many innocent people were given a guilty verdict simply for the dark color of their skin, and even more were seen as innocent because they were white.
In the Scottsboro case and the Emmett Till case, the accused was an African American male, charged with making advances toward a white woman. Specifically, in the Scottsboro case nine young African American men were accused of raping two white women, and in the Emmett Till case a boy was murdered because he had flirted with a white woman. Similarly, in To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Robinson is accused of raping a white woman, although there are many contradictions in witness testimonies and evidence that attests to Tom's innocence. However, during the time To Kill a Mockingbird was set in, many Southern whites believed that all African Americans were dishonest and immoral, and that African American males constantly lusted after white women. For this reason, numerous African American males were convicted of raping white women. In actuality, a majority of the crimes African Americans were convicted for had not occurred or had been simply blamed on African Americans by whites seeking to escape liability.
Unlike the Scottsboro case in which the accused were vagrants, Lee's case concerns Tom Robinson, who "lives in [a] little settlement beyond [Maycomb's] dump. He [is] a member of [the] church. ... [The Robinsons are] clean-living [people]" (Lee 75). While those with poor morals and unmannerly families are often more likely to commit crimes, Tom Robinson is a religious man and has a respectable family, making him an unrealistic suspect for such a crime as rape.
While both the Scottsboro case and the Emmett Till case concern boys, Lee chose to write Tom Robinson as a grown man since as a child he would have even less of a reason to rape Mayella Ewell, as Mayella is nineteen when the alleged rape occurs, providing Lee with a strong motive to contrast the many reasons why Tom Robinson could not rape Miss Ewell.
Under the circumstances of all three cases - the Scottsboro case, the Emmett Till case, and Harper Lee's Tom Robinson case in To Kill a Mockingbird - if the accused had been white, they would have had a much greater chance of being free of any blame. However, the accused were African Americans, and due to social attitudes of the time, there was no chance that they would be given proper justice.
Through carefully selected components from the Emmett Till case and the Scottsboro case, Harper Lee creates a case that overturns many negative stereotypes of African Americans widely accepted by whites during the Great Depression. A significant event in To Kill a Mockingbird, the Tom Robinson case demonstrates not only that the assumptions society had of Africans at the time were wrong, but also that not all white people were innocent. Racism still persists into present day, and Lee's core argument presented through the Tom Robinson case can still be applied - people of color are not inherently evil, and white people are not by nature good.
In the Scottsboro case and the Emmett Till case, the accused was an African American male, charged with making advances toward a white woman. Specifically, in the Scottsboro case nine young African American men were accused of raping two white women, and in the Emmett Till case a boy was murdered because he had flirted with a white woman. Similarly, in To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Robinson is accused of raping a white woman, although there are many contradictions in witness testimonies and evidence that attests to Tom's innocence. However, during the time To Kill a Mockingbird was set in, many Southern whites believed that all African Americans were dishonest and immoral, and that African American males constantly lusted after white women. For this reason, numerous African American males were convicted of raping white women. In actuality, a majority of the crimes African Americans were convicted for had not occurred or had been simply blamed on African Americans by whites seeking to escape liability.
Unlike the Scottsboro case in which the accused were vagrants, Lee's case concerns Tom Robinson, who "lives in [a] little settlement beyond [Maycomb's] dump. He [is] a member of [the] church. ... [The Robinsons are] clean-living [people]" (Lee 75). While those with poor morals and unmannerly families are often more likely to commit crimes, Tom Robinson is a religious man and has a respectable family, making him an unrealistic suspect for such a crime as rape.
While both the Scottsboro case and the Emmett Till case concern boys, Lee chose to write Tom Robinson as a grown man since as a child he would have even less of a reason to rape Mayella Ewell, as Mayella is nineteen when the alleged rape occurs, providing Lee with a strong motive to contrast the many reasons why Tom Robinson could not rape Miss Ewell.
Under the circumstances of all three cases - the Scottsboro case, the Emmett Till case, and Harper Lee's Tom Robinson case in To Kill a Mockingbird - if the accused had been white, they would have had a much greater chance of being free of any blame. However, the accused were African Americans, and due to social attitudes of the time, there was no chance that they would be given proper justice.
Through carefully selected components from the Emmett Till case and the Scottsboro case, Harper Lee creates a case that overturns many negative stereotypes of African Americans widely accepted by whites during the Great Depression. A significant event in To Kill a Mockingbird, the Tom Robinson case demonstrates not only that the assumptions society had of Africans at the time were wrong, but also that not all white people were innocent. Racism still persists into present day, and Lee's core argument presented through the Tom Robinson case can still be applied - people of color are not inherently evil, and white people are not by nature good.
Sources:
Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1960. Print.
Salter, Daren. "Scottsboro Trials." Encyclopedia of Alabama. N.p., 6 Feb. 2008. Web. 04 Dec. 2013.
Scottsboro: An American Tragedy. Dir. Daniel Anker and Barak Goodman. By Barak Goodman and Kay Boyle. Perf. Andre Braugher. Cowboy Pictures, 2001. Film.
The Murder of Emmett Till. Dir. Stanley Nelson. By Marcia A. Smith. Perf. Andre Braugher. PBS American Experience, 2003. DVD.
Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1960. Print.
Salter, Daren. "Scottsboro Trials." Encyclopedia of Alabama. N.p., 6 Feb. 2008. Web. 04 Dec. 2013.
Scottsboro: An American Tragedy. Dir. Daniel Anker and Barak Goodman. By Barak Goodman and Kay Boyle. Perf. Andre Braugher. Cowboy Pictures, 2001. Film.
The Murder of Emmett Till. Dir. Stanley Nelson. By Marcia A. Smith. Perf. Andre Braugher. PBS American Experience, 2003. DVD.