TABLE OF CONTENTS

About the Novel

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Story Synopsis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10Critics’ Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11Voices from the Novel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

About the Period

A Time in History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14The Geographical Picture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15Another Small-Town Halloween Party . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16Proper Clothes—Proper Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18Morphine: A Southern Lady’s Drug . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19Cotton Picking and “the Bear” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20The Great Depression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Help Your Poor Neighbor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22Dear Mr. President. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

About Race Relations

Viewpoints on Equality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26Legal Segregation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28Justice for All . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29Separate but Equal? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30A Southern Vacation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31Lynching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Moral Cowardice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32Southern Women Speak Out Against Lynching . . . . . . . . . . . 33

An Occurrence in Scottsboro, Alabama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34Haywood Patterson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34Ruby Bates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Why I Joined the Klan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37An Interview with Thurgood Marshall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38Nazi Racism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Mein Kampf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39Jesse and Luz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

continued

Comparative Works

Voices from Other Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41Poetic Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42Suggested Reading and Viewing List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Suggested Activities

Using Latitudes in Your Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48Student Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

TABLE OF CONTENTScontinued

14 © 1994 Perfection Learning Corporation, Logan, Iowa.

Great Depression (1929-1939)

First meeting of the Association ofSouthern Women for thePrevention of Lynching (1930)

Nine African-American youthscharged with the rapes of twowhite women in Scottsboro,Alabama; eight of the nine con-victed and sentenced to death(1931)

U.S. Supreme Court reverses convic-tions of the seven Scottsboro defen-dants on grounds that theirconstitutional rights were violated(November 7, 1932)

Second Alabama trial of theScottsboro Boys; defendants againconvicted (1933)

Franklin D. Roosevelt elected 32ndPresident of the United States(1933)

NRA (National RecoveryAdministration) begins (1933)

Hitler named German chancellor(1933)

U.S. Supreme Court again reversesScottsboro convictions (1935)

WPA (Works ProgressAdministration) begins (1935)

Jesse Owens wins gold medal inSummer Olympics in Germany(1936)

Franklin D. Roosevelt reelected U.S.President (1936)

Four Scottsboro defendants freed;others sentenced to long prisonterms (1937)

World War II begins (1939)

Nazi invasion of Poland (1939)

A Time inHISTORYThe following timeline traces some ofthe major events dealing with race rela-tions and the Great Depression.

1890

1900

1910

1920

1930

1940

1950

1930

1931

1932

1933

1934

1935

1936

1937

1938

1939

1940

U.S. Supreme Court decision inPlessy v. Ferguson makes seg-regation on railroad cars legal(1896)

NAACP is founded (1909)

Ku Klux Klan receives charterfrom Fulton County, Georgia;Klan spreads to otherSouthern states (1915)

U.S. Congress fails to pass anti-lynching bill (1922)

Haywood Patterson, one of theScottsboro defendants,escapes from prison andflees to the North (1948)

Last of the Scottsboro defen-dants freed on parole (1950)

Harper Lee based most of thecharacters and events in ToKill a Mockingbird on herown childhood experiences inMonroeville, Alabama. Forexample, Atticus is very muchlike Lee’s own father, and Dill isdrawn from her playmate,author Truman Capote.

An incident told in a biogra-phy of Capote reveals the simi-larities between the charactersand events in Lee’s early lifeand those in her novel. In A Bridge of Childhood:Truman Capote’s SouthernYears, author Marianne M.Moates tells of events thatoccurred during a Halloweenparty Truman gave at the homeof his aunt, a neighbor of theLees. Here we learn that some-times even whites weren’t safeat the hands of the Ku KluxKlan.

Note: The story is told in thevoice of Big Boy, Truman’s cousin and afriend of both Truman and Harper Lee. Inthe following excerpt, Harper Lee isreferred to as “Nelle.”

he party was in full swing when SallyBoular, dressed in a fluffy princess cos-tume, burst into the house, shrieking,“Help! Please help! The Klan’s got Sonnyover at Mr. Lee’s house! They’re gonnahang him!”

She screamed her words as shedescribed what happened. “We got on ourcostumes and walked as far as the Lees’

when the Klan saw us. They yelled,‘There’s one of them now!’ and startedrunning after us. We got scared andstarted running. Sonny tripped and fellin Mr. Lee’s yard. He couldn’t get up.They grabbed him and said they’re gonnahang him! Come quick!”

Someone yelled, “Call the sheriff!”While the adults crowded to the door

in a hubbub of activity, Truman, Nelle,and I darted out the back door, down thesteps, across the yard, and through thehedge. We reached Nelle’s front porchbefore any of the adults managed to getthere. All except Mr. Lee, who had heard

16 © 1994 Perfection Learning Corporation, Logan, Iowa.

Another Small-TownHalloween Party

continued

T

Harper Lee and her father, Amasa, at home in Alabama, 1961

Don

Uhr

broc

k, L

ifeM

agaz

ine

the commotion and was standing outsidein his undershirt and blue pants. Hewaded into the middle of the sheet-covered Klansmen, who had gathered inthe middle of the road holding theirtorches high.

The Klansmen didn’t offer any resis-tance to Mr. Lee, a big, strong man whohad the respect of everybody in town. Hewas a member of the state legislature,editor of the Monroe Journal, and anupstanding citizen. No one wanted to bethe one to cross him. When Mr. Lee got tothe center of the activity, he came face-to-face with a Klansman wearing a hoodwith green fringe. This was the GrandDragon.

In the center of the group was a seriesof silver-painted cardboard boxes thathad been wired to make a square head,body, arms, and legs. Round eye-holeswere cut in the front of the box on thehead. The strange figure could barelywalk with all the boxes wired to him, andhe couldn’t get his arms up to pull thebox from his head....When [Mr. Lee]

finally removed the box, there was Sonny,white as a sheet, with tears streamingdown his face. He tried to cling to Mr.Lee, but the boxes kept him back. “Iwasn’t going to hurt anybody,” he said. “Iwas coming to the party as a robot, that’sall.”

Mr. Lee turned to address the crowd ofKlansmen. “See what your foolishnesshas done? You’ve scared this boy half todeath because you wanted to believesomething that wasn’t true. You ought tobe ashamed of yourselves.”...

One by one [the Klan members] silent-ly ground their torches into the dirt andfaded into the blackened night....

While we discussed the excitement anddanger, Truman was getting it all in per-spective. Then his comments and ques-tions bubbled out: “...How about Mr. Lee?Did you notice after he spoke there wasno shouting, no more talk? Did you seethe look on the people’s faces?” Hepaused, then said thoughtfully, “Thepower of the Klan is gone. Nobody has tobe afraid of them anymore.”

17© 1994 Perfection Learning Corporation, Logan, Iowa.

Another Small-Town Halloween Party continued

Truman Capote Granger Collection

The account that follows, from Courtwright’s book,shows how Mrs. Dubose in To Kill a Mockingbirdtypifies the morphine addict of her time.

here is, by way of summing up, a character in Harper Lee’s novelTo Kill a Mockingbird named Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose. Mrs.Dubose is a propertied and cantankerous widow residing in a smallAlabama town. She is also a morphine addict, having become addictedyears ago as a consequence of a chronic, painful condition. Informedthat she has only a short while to live, she struggles to quit taking thedrug, for she is determined to “leave this world beholden to nothingand nobody.” Although fictitious, Mrs. Dubose personifies theAmerican opium or morphine addict of the late nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries. If all of the foregoing statistics were condensedinto a single, modal type, it would closely resemble Mrs. Dubose: anative Southerner, possessed of servant and property, once married,now widowed and homebound, evidently addicted since late middleage. In all respects—her sex, age of addiction, race, nationality,region, class, and occupation (or lack thereof)—she is typical. Typical,too, is the origin of her condition: she was addicted by her physician.

19© 1994 Perfection Learning Corporation, Logan, Iowa.

T

M O R P H I N EA Southern Lady’s Drug

Morphine is a highly addictive pain reliever that is stillused today, although it is strictly regulated. In the early1900s, morphine addiction was more than an isolatedoccurrence. Following is a look at the “typical” morphineaddict of the early 20th century. The data are summa-rized from Dark Paradise by David T. Courtwright.

1920s Typical Morphine Addict

• white female• middle-aged or older• widowed• homebound

• lives in the South• property owner• began using morphine

for medical reasons

These quotes from speeches,letters, books, and pam-phlets reveal someAmericans’ feelings on racerelations and equality.

Not many of the aspects oflife in Alabama areuntouched by the influenceof racial attitudes. TheNegro problem has given adistinct coloration to ourjudicial procedures, to oursocial attitudes, to our edu-cational points of view andeven to our artistic and sci-entific endeavors. Religionitself has not been immuneto the influence.

—Birmingham News(January 12, 1934)

...To the Negro in thesecounties in the South theimage of America is theimage of the Sheriff.

—James Nabrit, Jr.,May 1, 1963

As a race the Negro is defi-nitely inferior to the white.The only fields in whichthey are superior are intheir physical strength andtheir natural capacity asentertainers, making fun ofthemselves for the benefit ofothers.

—Robert Patterson,journalist

Belief in equality is an ele-ment of the democraticcredo....All individuals areentitled to equality of treat-ment by law and in itsadministration. Each one isaffected equally in quality ifnot in quantity by the insti-tutions under which he livesand has an equal right toexpress his judgment....Inshort, each one is equally anindividual and entitled toequal opportunity of devel-opment of his own capaci-ties, be they large or smallin range.

—John Dewey,Intelligence in the Modern

World, 1939

The real problem is not thenegro, but the white man’sattitude toward the negro.

—Thomas Pearce Bailey,1914

We consider the underlyingfallacy of the plaintiff’sargument to consist in theunderlying assumption thatthe enforced separation ofthe two races stamps thecolored race with a badge ofinferiority. If this be so, it isnot by reason of anythingfound in the act, but solelybecause the colored racechooses to put that construc-tion on it.

—JusticeHenry B. Brown,

who argued with themajority opinion in

Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896

Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knowsnor tolerates classes amongcitizens. In respect of civilrights, all citizens are equalbefore the law.

—JusticeJohn Marshall Harlan

(the only Southerner on theSupreme Court), who dis-agreed with the majority

opinion in Plessy v.Ferguson, 1896

The problem of the twenti-eth century is the problem ofthe color line—the relationof the darker to the lighterraces of men in Asia andAfrica, in America and theislands of the sea.

—W. E. B. DuBois,1903

26 © 1994 Perfection Learning Corporation, Logan, Iowa.

VIEWPOINTSon Equality

John Dewey

continued

The Granger Collection

Now where rests the respon-sibility for the lynch lawprevalent in the South? It isevident that it is not entirely with the ignorantmob. The men who breakopen jails and with bloodyhands destroy human lifeare not alone responsible.These are not the men whomake public sentiment.They are simply the hang-men, not the court, judge, orjury. They simply obey thepublic sentiment of theSouth—the sentiment creat-ed by wealth andrespectability, by the pressand pulpit. A change in pub-lic sentiment can be easilyeffected by these forceswhenever they shall elect tomake the effort. Let thepress and the pulpit of theSouth unite their poweragainst the cruelty, disgraceand shame that is settlinglike a mantle of fire uponthese lynch-law States, andlynch law itself will sooncease to exist.

—Frederick Douglass,August 11, 1892

I think understanding andsympathy for the white peo-ple in the South is as impor-tant as understanding andsympathy and support forthe colored people. We don’twant another war betweenthe states and so the onlypossible solution is to getthe leaders on both sidestogether and try to workfirst steps out.

—Eleanor Roosevelt,1956

We Negroes of America aretired of a world dividedsuperficially on the basis ofblood and color, but in reality on the basis of pover-ty and power—the rich overthe poor, no matter whattheir color. We Negroes ofAmerica are tired of a worldin which it is possible forany one group of people tosay to one another: “Youhave no right to happiness,or freedom, or the joy oflife.”...We are tired of aworld where, when we raiseour voices against oppres-sion, we are immediatelyjailed, intimidated, beaten,sometimes lynched.

—Langston Hughes,1937

What, then, is the cause oflynching? At the last analy-sis, it will be discovered thatthere are just two causes oflynching. In the first place,it is due to race hatred, thehatred of a stronger peopletoward a weaker who wereonce held as slaves. In thesecond place, it is due to thelawlessness so prevalent inthe section where nine-tenths of the lynchingsoccur.

—Mary Church Terrell,1904

Nowhere in the civilizedworld save the Unites Statesof America do men, possess-ing all civil and politicalpower, go out in bands of 50to 5000 to hunt down, shoot,hang or burn to death a sin-gle individual, unarmed andabsolutely powerless....Werefuse to believe this coun-try, so powerful to defend itscitizens abroad, is unable toprotect its citizens at home.

—Ida B. Wells,1898

We are citizens just as muchor more than the majority ofthis country....We are just asintelligent as they. This issupposed to be a free coun-try regardless of color, creedor race but still we areslaves....We did not ask tobe brought here as slaves,nor did we ask to be bornblack. We are real citizens ofthis land and must and willbe recognized as such!

—Mrs. Henry Weddington,in a 1941 letter to President

Franklin Roosevelt

27© 1994 Perfection Learning Corporation, Logan, Iowa.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Langston Hughes

Viewpoints continued

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