To Kill A Mockingbird

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To Kill A Mockingbird

• Background PowerPoint and Notes

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Racial Segregation

• January 1, 1863 Lincoln issued the Emancipation
  Proclamation, which declared freedom for all
  slaves.
• Intended to weaken the Souths power during the
  U.S. Civil War
• Although slaves were free, black people were
  affected by state laws that prevented equality
• These laws were known as the Jim Crow Laws

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Plessy vs. Ferguson

• Strengthened the already popular Jim Crow Laws
• In 1892, 30-year-old Homer Plessy was jailed for
  sitting in a white section of a railroad car
• Plessy was 1/8th black, but under Louisiana law,
  he was considered colored and was supposed to
  ride in the colored car.
• Plessy argued that his arrest was a violation of
  the Constitution
• Ferguson, the judge, found Plessy GUILTY of
  refusing to leave the white car. See handout

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Plessy vs. Ferguson

• After an appeal, the case went to the Supreme
  Court, which upheld the decision and perpetuated
  the concept of separate but equal.
• This enabled schools, courthouses, libraries,
  hotels, theaters, restaurants, public
  transportation, etc., to segregate coloreds
  from whites.

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Jim Crow Laws

• From the 1880s to the 1960s most states enforced
  segregation through the Jim Crow laws named
  after a black-faced character in minstrel shows.

• Through these laws legal punishments could be
  imposed on people for having contact with members
  of another race.

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Jim Crow Laws

• The term Jim Crow comes from the minstrel show
  song Jump Jim Crow written in 1828 and
  performed by Thomas Dartmouth Daddy Rice, a
  white English migrant to the U.S. and the first
  popularizer of blackface performance.
• A caricature of a shabbily dressed rural black
  named Jim Crow became a standard character in
  minstrel shows.

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Jim Crow Guide

• 1. A Black male could not offer his hand (to
  shake hands) with a White male because it
  implied being socially equal. Obviously, a Black
  male could not offer his hand or any other part
  of his body to a White woman, because he risked
  being accused of rape.
•      2. Blacks and Whites were not supposed
  to eat together. If they did eat together, Whites
  were to be served first, and some sort of
  partition was to be placed between them.
•   
• 3. Under no circumstance was a Black
  male to offer to light the cigarette of a White
  female -- that gesture implied intimacy.
•     4.  Blacks were not allowed to show
  public affection toward one another in public,
  especially kissing, because it offended Whites.
•     
• 5. Blacks were introduced to Whites,
  never Whites to Blacks.
•    
• 6.  Whites did not use courtesy titles
  of respect when referring to Blacks, for example,
  Mr., Mrs., Miss., Sir, or Ma'am. Instead, Blacks
  were called by their first names or by boy or
  girl (regardless of age). Blacks had to use
  courtesy titles when referring to Whites, and
  were not allowed to call them by their first
  names.
•      7. If a Black person rode in a car
  driven by a White person, the Black person sat in
  the back seat, or the back of a truck.
•     
• 8. White motorists had the
  right-of-way at all intersections.

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etiquette

• Blacks were expected to refer to whites with
  titles of superiority like BOSS, SIR, CAPTAIN,
  MISS, or MRS.
• Whites referred to blacks using derogatory terms
  like BOY, LADY, GIRL and the N word.
• Blacks were expected to let whites walk on the
  sidewalk and signs reading things like Negroes
  and Dogs Not Allowed were common

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KKK

• After the Civil War, The Ku Klux Klan was formed
  as a secret society that promoted white supremacy
  using violence and terrorism to undo the gains
  that former slaves had made.
• However, after the 1920s the KKK was no longer
  secretive about their work and public violence
  against Blacks, including lynching, became common
  occurrences.

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After WW1

• Even though Blacks had fought bravely for the US
  in WW1, they returned home from Europe to find
  the same, if not worse, discrimination and
  segregation.
• The economic struggles of the 1930s seemed only
  to worsen the situation.

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Langston Hughes (1902-1967)

• Will V-Day Be Me-Day Too?
• I am a Negro American
• Out to defend my land
• Ive seen my buddy lying
• Where he fell.
• Ive watched him dying
• I promised him that I would try
• To make our land a land
• Where his son could be a man
• And thered be no Jim Crow birds
• Left in our sky
• So this is what I want to know
• When we see Victorys glow,
• Will you still let old Jim Crow
• hold me back?

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The Scottsboro Trials

• In 1931, a fight between white and black teen
  boys occurred on a train between Tennessee and
  Alabama.
• Two girls on a train, one well-known prostitute
  and one minor, were accused of violating the Mann
  Act (crossing state lines for prostitution).
• They immediately accused all nine black men of
  rape.

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The Scottsboro Trials

• Eight of the nine boys were sentenced to death
  despite the fact that they were not even all in
  the same rail car.
• Appeals continued for years and only two were
  acquitted.
• See excerpt

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The Great Depression (1930s)

• The Depression hit the South especially hard
• Everyone, seemed to be living in poverty
• Americans turned away from the rest of the world
  and away from each other
• During these years of turmoil, discontent started
  to grow in the minds of Whites and Blacks alike.

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The Great Depression

• Overspending in the 1920s
• Stock Market crash of 1929
• President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal
• World War II

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To kill a Mockingbird
 

• It is in this setting that the novel To Kill a
  Mockingbird takes place.
• In a small town, in the deep South, in the early
  1930s

 
 
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Harper Lee (1926-)

• To add to the complexity of the story, Harper Lee
  wrote it during a time of even greater social
  turbulence in the United States.
• In the 1950s the winds of change began to blow
  and Black Americans were no longer willing to be
  treated as lesser human beings.

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Harper Lee

• Born Nelle Harper Lee, April 28, 1926
• Grew up during the Great Depression
• Grew up in Monroeville, Alabama, in the heart of
  the South, where racial tension was high
• Dad was a lawyer
• Mothers maiden name was Finch

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Brown vs. Board of Education

• In 1954, after 2 years in court, the nation was
  shocked by a landmark decision to grant Linda
  Brown, a Black fifth-grader, admission into a
  white elementary school in Topeka, Kansas.
• The decision engendered feelings of triumph and
  outrage across a country that had lived under the
  weight of racial segregation and discrimination
  for over 100 years.

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The Winds of Change

• Soon, average Black citizens across the country
  began speaking out against oppression and
  demanding equal rights. This was the beginning
  of Americas Civil Rights Movement.

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Rosa Parks (1913-)

• In 1955, after a long day of work, 42-year-old
  Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white
  man on a Montgomery County bus
• This set off peaceful and violent protests
  throughout the South.

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Television Changes Everything

• By this time, many families had televisions and
  as images of Southern race riots and violent
  protests reached into American homes the
  magnitude of Southern racism began to sink into
  the American consciousness.
• Moreover, the rest of the world began to frown
  upon Americas treatment of Blacks, and
  segregation, like slavery, became a national
  embarrassment for a country who had fought in two
  world wars as great liberators of the
  down-trodden masses.

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Dr. Martin Luther King (1929-1968)

• Black Hero-Leaders began to rally together Black
  Americans in order to fight oppression and for a
  country where all men were truly treated as
  equals.

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Desegregation

• A national and international call for
  desegregation of the South rang out and Blacks
  and Whites all over the country started putting
  pressure on governments to amend the segregation
  laws.
• Those individuals, both Black and White, who
  fought for Civil Rights were under constant
  attack from White Supremacists who were unwilling
  to accept Black Americans as equals
• Many freedom-fighters died for their efforts

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To Kill a Mockingbird

• In the Fall of 1960, in the middle of the Civil
  Rights Movement, To Kill a Mockingbird was
  published.
• It shot to the top of the New York Times best
  seller list.
• A country was finally ready to listen to the
  story of segregation and open their minds to the
  possibility of an America where Whites and Blacks
  could live together as equals.

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• I have a dream that my four little children
  will one day live in a nation where they will
  not be judged by the color of their skin, but by
  the content of their character."

• Dr. Martin Luther King

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History of the Novel

• Harper Lees novel is one of the best-selling
  books in the nations history.
• Won the Pulitzer Prize
• Translated into more than 40 languages
• Been made into an enormously popular movie
• Librarians across the country voted it the best
  novel of the 20th century.

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History of the Novel cont.

• Frequently cited by readers as the book that has
  made the biggest difference in their lives.
• Through the lives of children, it allows the
  reader to walk around in the shoes of people who
  are different from ourselves.
• The novel challenges our stereotypesof the
  Southerner, of the African American, the
  eccentric, the child, and the young lady.

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Setting/ Basic Info

• Maycomb Country, Alabama (fictional)
• 1933-1935
• Written Mid-50s
• Narrator Scout Finch
• 1st person narrator
• Use flashback
• Tonechildlike, humorous, innocent as the novel
  progresses, dark, foreboding, and critic of
  society
• She bases Scout somewhat on herself

• Scout has matured over the years and humorously
  comments on the innocence she displayed in her
  thoughts / actions as a young girl
• She mostly tells of her thoughts but focuses on
  her brother Jems thoughts also

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Jem Finch

• Scouts older brother
• He undergoes a transformation from innocent child
  to a young adult who is faced with the realities
  of living in his small town and what prejudices
  exist right outside his front porch.

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Atticus Finch

• Father and only parent to Scout and Jem Finch
• Local lawyer like Lees biological father
• He is the lawyer who is defending a black man
  accused of raping a teenage girl in the 1930s
  during the midst of the Great Depression.

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Major Thematic Ideas

• Remember a theme is usually in sentence form.
  These are the thematic ideas.
• Prejudicethe most obvious
• Equal justice
• Courage moral, physical, and mental
• Social ostracism (exclusion)
• Maturation
• Heroism
• Friendship
• Innocence and what can happen to it

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Literary Terms Focus

• Allusionreference within a literary work to
  another fiction work, a film, a piece of art, or
  a real event.
• Positives A way of drawing on this outside work
  / object to provide greater context / meaning to
  the situation being discussed
• Negatives People may not always understand or
  know the work or object being referenced
• Example
• His love for her drove him to stamp out her life
  like Othello did to Desdemona.

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Literary Terms Focus

• Symbol people, places, or things used to
  represent something else in literature
• Personal certain objects mean certain things to
  us
• Cultural Hang on Sloopy OSU
• Universal

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Literary Terms Focus

• Idiom Meaning cannot be deduced from literal
  definitions or arrangement of words
• Figurative meaning must be used instead
• Examples
• Sitting around waiting is making me antsy.
• Life has been difficult for you recently, but
  keep your chin up. Everything will be better
  soon.
• He says nice things to me when were together,
  but he makes jokes about me when we arent. Hes
  two-faced.
• That really gets my goat. (From TKAM)

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Connection to Life

• Mini-Writing Assignment1-2 paragraphs due by
  Thursday 01/08
• Think about your early childhood or now
• Were there any houses on your street you were
  afraid of?
• Were there any legends or scary stories you were
  told about someone on your street, family member,
  teacher, etc. that you believed?
• Was there anyone you lived near but never saw?
• Was there anyone at school you heard stories
  about that were not true but you believed and
  feared?
• Think for a few minutes about this mysterious or
  scary person or experience and write it down.
  Explain the outcome as well. COME UP WITH
  SOMETHING!! Make it creativelike a short
  narrative
• Must be typed or handwritten in MLA with 4
  line heading, header with last name and page
  number, title, double spaced, etc.

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The End