THE HISTORICAL ACCURACY IN TO KILL A
MOCKINGBIRD (MULLIGAN, 1962)
To Kill a Mockingbird is a fictional story about a
young girl, Jean Louis Finch (Scout), and her
brother, Jem, growing up in Depression-era
Alabama. The film centers on the trial of a
young black man accused of raping a young
white woman. The film was released in 1962 and
directed by Robert Mulligan. The screenplay,
written by Horton Foote, is greatly based on the
novel of the same name by Harper Lee. It stars
Gregory Peck, Mary Badham, Phillip Alford,
Robert Duvall, and Brock Peters. To Kill a
Mockingbird won three academy awards for best
actor, best screenplay, and best director, and it
was nominated for five others.
The 1930s Depression and the complex racial relations within the South form the historical context of To Kill a
Mockingbird. To Kill a Mockingbird seeks to portray the racial injustices and prejudices against African
Americans in the South, while also making a statement about civil rights issues that were occurring when the film
was released. The film is greatly autobiographical of the novel’s author, Harper Lee, and is a study of small town
life in the South. The trial of Tom Robinson in the film is reflective of the Scottsboro Trials of the 1930s and the
Emmett Till Trials of the 1950s. Also, as Lee was writing the novel the Brown v. Board of Educationdecision had
just been reached and many events in the Civil Rights movement had taken place. Rosa Parks had stirred events
leading to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and Authenine Lucy had entered the all-white University of Alabama. The
racial tensions leading to these events are reflected in the plot and themes of To Kill a Mockingbird.
The novel and film of To Kill a Mockingbird are largely an autobiographical account of Harper Lee’s life. Lee has
denied that the story has autobiographical elements, claiming an author only writes “what she knows,” but the
similarities between Lee’s life, and Scout’s life are unmistakable. The novel is set in Maycomb, Alabama, a town
resembling Lee’s hometown of Monroeville, Alabama. Like Maycomb, Monroeville was a world surrounded by
racism and occasionally violence. Her childhood and the current events of the 1950s inspired Lee to write To Kill a
Mockingbird. Like Scout, Lee’s father, A.C. Lee, was the inspiration for Atticus Finch. Like Atticus, Lee was a
quiet, respected lawyer in a small town, and a member of the state legislature . Lee’s father had defended two
blacks accused of murdering a Monroeville merchant, but the two men were found guilty and hanged . Lee’s
mother’s maiden name was Finch, which Lee directly honors by giving the main family in the film and novel the
name of Finch. An important part of Lee’s extended family was lifelong friend, Truman Capote. Lee has admitted
that Capote was the inspiration for the character of Dill Harris. Lee herself was known as a “rough ‘n’ tough
tomboy ” much as Scout is portrayed.
Through the use of setting, Mulligan was able to accurately portray the South in the 1930s at the height of the
Depression. “Maycomb, Alabama, was a tired old town in the '30s... There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to
go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with. But it was a time of vague optimism. Maycomb County had
recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself. " During the Depression, over farming had exhausted
the soil, and tenement farming worsened the conditions. These worsened soil conditions and falling cotton process
drastically effected economic situations for most blacks and whites in the South. Those with professions in towns
were also affected, because, as Atticus explains in the beginning of the film, the farmers cannot afford the services
of those with skilled professions in town. Almost everybody was poor.
The film accurately portrays the social system of the Depression era South. There was a definite caste system in
the rural South. The South had a stubborn will to hold onto its traditions of the past. The social hierarchy in society
must be maintained. The film acutely attacks racism and the fear of sexual taboos in its portrayal of the justice
system. It is made unmistakably plain that as a black man, Tom Robinson will not receive a fair trial. The film
accurately depicts locals forming a lynch mob because they feel there is no need to even try Robinson.
The film also accurately shows that racial relations were complicated on many levels in southern society. Any
sexual reference between a black man and a white woman was considered a very serious offence by many whites
and blacks. The set racial boundaries that had been established could not be broken . In the trial scene Atticus
determines that Mayella Ewell was attracted to Tom Robinson. This caused an outrage within the courtroom
because social norms held that a white woman could never be attracted to a white man. Therefore, even the
suggestion that Tom Robinson had relations with Mayella Ewell causes severe prejudice against Tom in the town. .
The town was not necessarily afraid of Tom Robinson, but of breaking the social norm that held a white woman
could never be attracted to a white man. Therefore, Tom Robinson was guilty as soon as he was accused.
An incident of lynching through mob violence was a plausible reality in the 1930s. During the depression there was
a resentment of black laborers with financial freedom, such as Tom Robinson. As economic situations worsened in
the South, this resentment grew. During the height of the Depression, the number of lynching’s grew in direct
proportion to the decrease in the economic stability of the South . There are several instances in the 1930s when
black men were killed before they were put on trial. For example, in 1931 a man in Birmingham, Alabama accused
of rape was an invalid and not able to commit the crime. The accuser’s brother however, shot the man and was
never arrested for murder . The film accurately shows the small town ethics that governed people in the South in
the 1930s. The idealized public society must be upheld, at the risk of rejecting the law. If the social order was ever
disrupted, men felt they were obligated to use force to preserve the social norms imbedded in society .
To Kill a Mockingbird was written at the peak of the Civil Rights Movement. The film was released in the early
1960s. Throughout the 1950s Alabama had had many tumultuous events dealing with race occur within its borders.
The Brown v. Board of Education decision began to govern race relations in the South, but often with violent
opposition. The Brown decision negated the “separate but equal” philosophy of Plessy v. Ferguson. This
philosophy had been the ruling basis of segregated Southern society since the Civil War. Brown represented the
many southerners fear of racial mixing and complete social equality . These fears led to violent reactions. Tom
Brady’s “Black Monday” in which he claimed blacks would be a threat to “the loveliest and the purest of God’s
creatures… the well-bred, cultured Southern white woman, ” shows the dominant ideology in the South following
the Brown decision. This ideology is directly portrayed negatively in the film, as Tom Robinson is accused of
soiling the purity of white Mayella Ewell. The Brown decision was still an issue when the film was released, and
Mulligan is attempting to show the faults of such an ideology.
At the same time as Brown v. Board of Education, Dr. Martin Luther King had been leading civil rights
demonstrations, and African American students had staged sit-ins at lunch counters all over the South. Just months
before Harper Lee began writing the novel, two major events altered the course of the Civil Rights movement. In
1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for violating the bus segregation ordinance, and soon after, the Montgomery bus
boycott began. Then two black women, Authenine Lucy and Pollie Ann Myers had their admission rescinded from
the University of Alabama when the University found out their race. Authenine Lucy sued the school and won
admission. She was the first black woman to enter a southern, public university that previously been only white.
However, she was severely persecuted and often mobbed . The story was covered nationally and had great
emphasis placed on the importance of desegregation of universities. Lee, herself, had attended the University of
Alabama a few years before Lucy was admitted.
The trial in the film mirrors actual trials that occurred in the 1930s and the 1950s: the 1931 Scottsboro case and the
1955 Emmett Case. The Scottsboro Case became a national event of either outrage or celebration. It brought the
issues of lynching laws and racial justice to a very international lever, as other countries followed the story. The
Emmett Case was “probably the most widely publicized trial of the century” and “... the first great media event of
the civil rights movement .” The Emmett Case had great significance in the South, because it occurred very soon
after the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Some white southerners were looking for excuses to persecute
African Americans, and the Emmett Case brought this issue to the forefront of current events.
To Kill a Mockingbird makes a blatant statement about the currents events that had recently occurred and were
continuing to occur in the country. The character of Atticus Finch is a representation of the beliefs that many white
Americans needed to strive for in the South. Many critics have equated Atticus to “the Abe Lincoln of Alabama. ”
Atticus believed Tom Robinson, and disbelieved Mayella Ewell, a white woman. This was a bold statement not
only in the 1930s Alabama, but also in the 1960s. Social norms always accepted a white woman’s word as truth,
and a black man’s word as mistrustful . Mulligan was showing that justice should not be determined by a person’s
race, but by the actual facts surrounding an event. The audience that first saw this film would have understood the
implications presented in the film.
The film centers on the trial scene in which Atticus gives a strong lesson of not only justice, but also what
constitutes humanity. The focus of the movie is on right and wrong. Mulligan was making a deliberate statement.
By placing the events in the 1930s, To Kill a Mockingbird is set in time when the beliefs of men ruled their actions
in defiance of the laws they professed they believed. African Americans had very few rights, and the novel and
film were purposefully set before desegregation and the civil rights movement. The film seeks to show that the
Supreme Court should not be needed to prove that a person of a different race is not better or worse than a person
of another race.
To Kill a Mockingbird is a fictional story that portrays many realities of racism in Southern life in the 1930s. The
film is relating the events of the 1930s to the civil rights movement and current events of the 1950s and 1960s. The
history in the film is based on Harper Lee’s observations growing up in a small town in Alabama, as well as events
that had recently occurred within the United States right before the film was being made. The history in To Kill a
Mockingbird “is therefore not literally but symbolically ‘true’ ” The film does not seek to show every historical
detail of the 1930s, but shows the implications of social norms and the repercussions of these norms. The events
shown in the film are subjective versions of many events of the 1930s through the 1960s that show the need for
complete social equality.
Writing Task:
Please respond to the prompt below in a 2-3 paragraph response. Be sure to include a works cited page for each of
the resources you consider when constructing your response.
Consider the information in this article related to Robert Mulligan’s interpretation of Harper Lee’s To Kill a
Mockingbird. Based on what you read,

How did real life events contribute to Mulligan’s interpretation?

Conduct some supplementary research and determine what affect the film had on the Civil Rights
movement.