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Jim Crow and To Kill a Mockingbird: A Virtual Field Trip

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By Emily Finerfrock GHS, English 9 Honors, 2011

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Stop 1: Jim Crow America

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Reflect upon these images of the Jim Crow era. What do you see? What is your reaction to this image? What would you do if you saw this? Click on the link below to read about the Jim Crow laws and to get a better definition of them.

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http://www.ferris.edu/news/jimcrow/what.htm

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Jim Crow America

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Based on these images, what are Jim Crow laws? Is this separate but equal?

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Racisms Origins

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You can find this sign in Pittsylvania County, VA, which is to the Southwest of us. What comes to mind when you hear the word lynching? After recording your reactions, go on to stop 2

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Stop 2: Just a Boy?

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Write a few sentences about the boy in the picture. Imagine that you were about to meet him; what do you think of him based on this picture? When you finish, click on the arrow to find out who he was.

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Emmett Tills Open Casket Funeral

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Have you ever sent a loved son on vacation and had him returned to you in a pine box, so horribly battered and water-logged that someone needs to tell you this sickening sight is your son -lynched?"
- Mamie Bradley, mother of Emmett Till

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A Life Cut Short

Emmett Till lived in Chicago, but in August of 1955, he went to Mississippi to visit his uncle. He never made it home.

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This is Bryants Grocery Store in Mississippi. On Aug. 24, 1955, Emmett and some friends went here (owned by a white couple) to get some refreshments. It was here that Emmett allegedly made the fatal mistake of whistling at a white woman.

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The Tallahatchie River

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August 28: At about 2:30 a.m., Roy Bryant, Carolyn's husband, and his half brother J. W. Milam, kidnap Emmett Till from Moses Wright's home. They will later describe brutally beating him, taking him to the edge of the Tallahatchie River, shooting him in the head, fastening a large metal fan used for ginning cotton to his neck with barbed wire, and pushing the body into the river. This image would have been one of the last things Emmett saw before he died.

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The Trial

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September 19: The kidnapping and murder trial of J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant opens in Sumner, Mississippi, the county seat of Tallahatchie County. Jury selection begins and, with blacks and white women banned from serving, an all-white, 12-man jury made up of nine farmers, two carpenters and one insurance agent is selected. What do you think the verdict was?

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Not Guilty!

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Left: Emmetts Uncle Moses accuses the two men of kidnapping his nephew by physically pointing them out in court. Right: However, the all-white jury acquits both men, who are seen here rejoicing with their wives. What is your reaction to this?

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Public Reaction

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Emmetts mother insisted on an open casket in order to show the public the brutality of his murder. As if that werent enough, the not guilty verdict further drew attention to the injustice in the South. The image above shows the Edmund Pettis bridge in Selma, Alabama, where the famous March on Selma took place. Click on to read more about this and other events from the Civil Rights movement.

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The Civil Rights Movement

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Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, and others led the fight to achieve equality among the races through nonviolent resistance. The marchers in Selma practiced nonviolence; however, the police of Alabama did not. Images such as this and the photos of Emmett in his casket appeared in newspapers around the world. How would this affect public perceptions of separate but equal? Were things equal for all in the South?

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Harper Lees Connection

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Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960. She grew up in the South during the Jim Crow Era, and Emmett Tills death would have been national news while she wrote the novel.

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Stop 3: Harper Lees South

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(Nelle) Harper Lee grew up in Monroeville, Alabama (the heart of the segregated South). The left image shows her on the porch of her childhood home. The right image shows her home today, which is now a fast food store. The stone wall represents the former location of Truman Capotes home. Click at right to learn more about him.

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Truman Capote

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Capote, also a writer, grew up next door to Harper Lee. This wall was the frame for his childhood home in Alabama. Recent films such as Capote show the authors lifelong friendship with Harper Lee. Capote is the basis for the Dill Harris character in TKaM, and Lee helped Capote edit his masterpiece, In Cold Blood.

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The Great Depression

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Lee and Capote both grew up during the Great Depression (1928-1938). During this time, over 13 million people lost their jobs, several banks closed, and over half of Americans lived below the sustenance level (meaning they lacked money to afford food or shelter).

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The Great Depression and its consequences!

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As a result of such widespread poverty, many people looked for a scapegoat. In the South, unfortunately, this gave way to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, who (unjustly) blamed Blacks for the misfortunes of Whites. This created extremely high racial tensions, which escalated until the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s

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Stop 4: The Civil Rights Legacy

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In 1957, Central High School in Little Rock, AK, became the first integrated high school following the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954. However, the road to integration was not easy, and these nine students had to be escorted by the National Guard of the US after the state governor ordered the state militia to block their entrance. Yes, high school can be rough, but can you imagine needing the federal military to escort you?

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The Little Rock Nine

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These students paved the way for equality within the education system of the United States, and their legacy is remembered in this memorial in Little Rock. Reflect upon the words of these students.

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Legacy, Continued

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In 1964, seated at the White House, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law, providing equality for all and discrimination against none. Do you believe that this law is truly upheld everywhere? What are examples of tolerance in modern society? Intolerance?

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Stop 5: To Kill a Mockingbird and Scottsboro

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Lees Puhlitzer Prize-winning novel was released in 1960, just five years after the death of Emmett Till. She would have been writing as that story unfolded, and it is also largely believed that she based her novel (in part) on the Scottsboro Boys trial of 1931an event she would have witnessed as a young girl in Alabama.

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The Scottsboro Boys

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In 1931, a few White boys and 9 Black boys became entangled in a scuffle en route from Chattanooga, TN. Outnumbering the White men, the Black men ousted them from the train. However, when they arrived in Paint Rock, AL, there were armed men waiting who promptly escorted the boys to jail (in Scottsboro). Their supposed crime? Raping two White women (friends of the White men booted from the train) who had come forward after the White men were booted from the train.

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The Trials
The Scottsboro boys were tried in small groups in 1931 (two boys were only 12 or 13). One of their lawyers (a real estate attorney) came to court drunk, and the other was extremely old and had not tried a case in several years; they offered no closing argument, and they did not refute any Prosecution testimony despite NUMEROUS holes in the stories of the women. Though the boys were innocent of their supposed crimes, eight of the nine boys received death sentences (the youngest boys trial ended in a mistrial).

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Trials, Contd.

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Eventually, the Independent Labor Party and the NAACP became involved, and they fought for re-trials and received new lawyers. At the 2nd trial, lawyer Samuel Leibowitz got the women to admit (on the stand, under oath!) that they had lied about being raped and made up the story to get the boys in trouble. Although it seemed like they would be found not guilty, they were, yet again, found guilty!!! However, Haywood Patterson (now being tried individually) was still convicted of rape and sentenced to death after the jury was out for five minutes.

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However
Judge Horton, who presided over Pattersons trial, set aside the verdict and ordered a new trial. No surprise, Patterson was AGAIN convicted; however, he was only sentenced to 75 years in prisonnot death. The other boys were convicted and sentenced to death or life in prison. They all ended up spending several years in the horrific Alabama prisons while awaiting trials. Though their convictions were never overturned, by 1950 all the boys made their way out of Alabama for good due to parole. What effect, do you believe, wrongful imprisonment in base conditions would have on a person? What do you take away from this piece of American history?

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Literatures Response

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Lee was obviously influenced by this and other instances of injustice in her youth. Her novel garnered much critical acclaim and instantly sky-rocketed her to fame. She remains reclusive to this day, rarely giving interviews; and she never wrote another novel. Her work still resonates today, and she was recently honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom (seen here). Based on all this information, what do you anticipate as we continue to read To Kill a Mockingbird?

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The Long Road to Change

As a class, we will watch a short video on some of the events of the Civil Rights Movement, which began around the time Harper Lee was writing To Kill a Mockingbird

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