To Kill A Mockingbird

1 Pages 139 Words

In 1931, when Lee was five, nine young black men were accused of raping two white women near Scottsboro, Alabama. (A6) After a series of lengthy, highly publicized, and often bitter trials, four of the nine men were sentenced to long prison terms. (A8) Many prominent lawyers and other American citizens saw the sentences as spurious and motivated only by racial prejudice. (A9) Later, it was revealed that the women who had accused the men were lying. There can be little doubt that the Scottsboro Case, as the trials of the nine men came to be called, served as a seed for the trial that stands at the heart of Lee's novel. (B7) There were many other cases of racism that was clearly present through the 1930s, and all in all, it was the blacks who suffered the most....