Similarities Between the Scottsboro Boys and Tom Robinson Essay

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There are many similarities between the Scottsboro trial and the trial of Tom Robinson in the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. “No crime in American history—let alone a crime that never occurred—produced as many trials, convictions, reversals, and retrials as did an alleged gang rape of two white girls by nine black teenagers on a Southern railroad freight run on March 25, 1931” (Linder 1). The author of To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee, was a young girl during the Scottsboro trial and based the trial of Tom Robinson in her novel off of the Scottsboro trial of 1931. The three main similarities between the Scottsboro trial and the trial of Tom Robinson are the geographic settings, the portrayal of racism, and the specifics of the court …show more content…
“ A jury never looks at a defendant it has convicted, and when this jury came in, not one of them looked at Tom Robinson. The foreman handed a piece of paper to Mr. Tate who handed to the clerk who handed it to the judge . . . I shut my eyes. Judge Taylor was polling the jury: ‘Guilty . . . guilty . . . guilty . . . guilty . . .’” (Lee 211). This quote is from To Kill a Mockingbird when Scout and Jem were waiting for the verdict of the jury. In both cases the trials were extremely long and both cases were false charges against African Americans during the 1930's by lower class Caucasians. Atticus Finch, of To Kill a Mockingbird, and real-life attorney Samuel Leibowitz both defended the black accused victims.

The trial of the Scottsboro boys and the trial of Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird share many similarities. The three main similarities are the geographic settings, the portrayal of racism, and the certain specifics of the court cases. Having grown up during the convictions and trial of the Scottsboro boys, Harper Lee wrote and based her own trial off of the ones going on in Alabama in the 1930s. Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, wrote her novel to take place in Alabama; the same place she grew up and the same place the Scottsboro trial occurred. Racism was one of the biggest factors that took place in both trials; the words of white women against black men were the
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