Tom Robinson is Proved Guilty Before Trial Essays -- Kill Mockingbird

Tom Robinson is Proved Guilty Before Trial In the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, Tom Robinson, the black man falsely convicted of rape, had absolutely no chance of a fair trial. There is proof of this in the time period in which it occurred as well as evidence from the novel itself. Tom Robinson had an unfair trial because it was his word against the Ewell’s, a white, trashy family. To Kill A Mockingbird took place in the 1930’s, a time that was enormously charged with racial tension. One example of this is the existence of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Even though the KKK was in a time of decline in the 1930’s, it had been very prominent in the 1920’s and had still not completely died out. The KKK had rallies and marches. They even marched in Washington D.C. several times. They burned crosses on the lawns of any white person who would show favor towards blacks in an effort to scare them away from helping black folks. The KKK was an extremely violent group. â€Å"While African-Americans still bore the brunt of much Klan violence, Jews and Catholics topped the enemy’s list, followed by immigrants and those who transgressed Klan’s vision of morality† (â€Å"History†). The KKK showed their violence in several ways. Lynchings occurred very frequently as did raids of people’s homes. Although not all lynchings were caused by the KKK most of them were. Lynchings were held very often in the South during the time when the KKK was prominent. During these lynchings, people were often pulled from their homes at night, beaten within an inch of their lives, and sometimes they were hanged or burned alive. These lynchings occurred most frequently among black people although white people were lynched as well. After t... ...case. The fact that the trial took place in the 1930’s in the South put automatic guilt over Tom Robinson’s head. He did nothing wrong, but that was not enough to convince the jury of his innocence. Works Cited Chalmers, Allan K. They Shall Be Free. Garden City: Doubleday & Company, 1951. "History of the Ku Klux Klan: The Second Era of the Ku Klux Klan, 1915, 1944." HateWatch.org. 13 Feb. 2001. http://www.hatewatch.co.uk/klan/2nd_era1.html. Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York: Warner Books, 1960. "Scottsboro Case." 1999-2000. Encyclopedia Brittanica. 11 Mar. 2001. http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/printable/2/0,577,68092,00.html. Pansdell, Hollace. "Report on the Scottsboro, Ala. Case ." American Civil Liberties Union 27 May 1931. 11 Mar. 2001 http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/scottsboro/SB_HRrep.html.