Race and Justice: Reading To Kill a Mockingbird
"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view," Atticus Finch tells his daughter, Scout, in To Kill a Mockingbird.
These words embody one of the main messages of Harper Lee's novel. Published in 1960, it is considered one of the greatest works of modern American literature.
The novel examines issues of racism, prejudice, injustice and morality, told from the perspective of Scout, who ages from 6 to 9 years old during the story.
It takes place in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, in the 1930s, where Tom Robinson, a Black man, is falsely accused of sexually assaulting a white woman.
Despite threats from people in the community, Atticus, a lawyer, agrees to defend him. Tom's gentle and innocent nature is compared to that of a mockingbird, which is where the novel gets its name.
"It's a sin to kill a mockingbird," Atticus says.
Lee's writing expertly blends the serious with the innocent. And with the novel's first-person narration, readers can see the world through young Scout's eyes.
In some parts, Scout discusses childish things, like climbing trees and fighting with her brother, Jem. In other parts, she tries to make sense of racial injustice in the Southern US.
Although Lee always said the novel wasn't autobiographical, it was inspired by her experiences growing up in Alabama. Her own father was a lawyer who unsuccessfully defended two Black men accused of murder.
Since its publication, To Kill a Mockingbird has been controversial because of its depictions of racism and sexual assault, and has frequently been banned in the US.
That hasn't affected its popularity, however. It won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize, and over 40 million copies have been sold worldwide.
And its impact is still felt today. In 2016, when Lee died, former US President Barack Obama wrote on Facebook: "What that one story did, more powerfully than one hundred speeches possibly could, was change the way we saw each other, and then the way we saw ourselves."
