Race, Crime, and Justice in
To Kill a Mockingbird and
Beyond
Renee Romano
Oberlin College
January 7, 2015
Harper Lee
A few of the
many
foreign
translations
of To Kill a
Mockingbir
d
“The First
Vote”
Harper’s
Magazine,
November
1867
Disfranchising Blacks in the South
The blackface minstrel figure of “Jim Crow”
Daily Life Under
the Jim Crow
regime
Signs of Jim Crow
"3436 Blots of Shame on the United States: 1889-1922.”
A graphic representation of the extent of lynching in
the US, prepared by the NAACP in 1922
A Postcard of a Lynching
Postcard depicting the lynching of Lige Daniels, August 3, 1920.
The back reads, "This was made in the court yard in Center, Texas. He is a
16 year old Black boy. He killed Earl's grandma. She was Florence's
mother. Give this to Bud. From Aunt Myrtle."
One of the other most
influential books about
race in the United States
in the postwar period
Law enforcement
during the civil
rights movement
A
Mississippi
Sovereignty
Commission
Pamphlet
The jury at the Emmett Till murder trial deliberated only 67
minutes before acquitting Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam of the
crime. The two admitted killing Till for $4000 from Look
Magazine several months later.
In this 1962 Clifford
Baldowski editorial
cartoon, members of
the Klan and
southern lawmen
kidnap “justice”
while reassuring her
that she is “in good
hands.”
A few of those whose murder
cases have been reopened
Birmingham
church
bombing
victims
Emmett Till
Henry Dee
and Charles
Moore
James
Chaney,
Andrew
Goodman,
and Mickey
Schwerner
Medgar
Evers
5 of the 21 men
put in jail since
1994
A jubilant Myrlie Evers after
the 1994 conviction of
Byron De La Beckwith for
her husband’s 1963 murder.
In the film about the trial,
the white lawyer became the
lead figure
Washington Post-ABC Poll of
December 27, 2014
Editorial Cartoon from The Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
July 16, 2013