Brown v. Board of Education: The Most Influential Civil Rights Case in United States History, and Literature

“Segregation of white and Negro children in the public schools of a State solely on the basis of race, pursuant to state laws permitting or requiring such segregation, denies to Negro children the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.”  This was the first line to one of the most significant and influential cases in United States civil rights history: Brown v. Board of Education.  First erupting in the early 1950’s, African American civil rights debates consumed the news of Americans.  In Topeka, Kansas, a third-grade school girl named Linda Brown was disallowed to attend a white school, sparking much tension between the majority whites and the minority blacks.  When the case was decided in 1954 by the Supreme Court, it was ruled that the racial segregation "...violates the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees all citizens equal protection of the laws...”.  This court ruling was a landmark event to African Americans nationwide, as it overturned the previously stated “separate but equal” policy.  Although the decision was amid much controversy and turmoil throughout the nation, it was truly a historic event for the United States in its years to come.

The case of Brown v. Board of Education was very influential to Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird.  If the ruling would have occurred earlier in United States history, then the book, set in the 1930’s would not have been the same.  Harper Lee was able to write her novel in the ‘60s, immediately after the ruling and still amid racial tension.  If Brown v. Board of Education had taken place just a few decades earlier, then there probably would not have been such racial discrimination as late in American history as the ‘60s.  The case would have died down by the time Lee wrote TKAM, and therefore segregation and racism would not have been such a beating issue at the time of the novel’s release.  The timing of the court case was imperative to the writing of To Kill A Mockingbird and to American civil rights for years to come.

Sources:
http://brownvboard.org/summary/
http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/early-civilrights/brown.html
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=347&invol=483

Gossip: The Irreparable Sin

In the acclaimed movie Doubt, there is a scene in which a priest gives a very powerful sermon on gossip.  He preaches to the congregation a story about a woman who has gossiped, and then goes to church, to ask the parish priest if her gossiping was a sin.  The priest says yes, her gossiping was indeed a sin, for she had bore false witness against her neighbor, and should be “heartily ashamed”.  When the woman asks for forgiveness, the priest orders her to return to her house, stand on her roof, and cut open a pillow with a knife.  The woman does just this and soon after returns to the priest, who asks her what was the result.  “Feathers”, she replies, “feathers everywhere, Father”.  The priest then instructs her to go back home, and pick up each and every feather that had flown away in the wind.  Knowing it is an impossible task, the woman says she cannot, with the Father’s reply, “And that is gossip”.

This meaningful scene depicts gossip perfectly: once it is loose, it can never be stopped, as it will go down in history for years and years to come.  Gossip is seen playing a crucial role in To Kill A Mockingbird, appearing as a major theme in the novel.  In the small town of Maycomb, Alabama, everybody knows each other.  All of the townspeople know the history, who’s who, what’s what, and so on.  Therefore, certain fallacies can easily be transmitted throughout the tight-knit community.  A notorious character Harper Lee presents early on in the book is Boo Radley.  Living a life so solitude in a house with his parents, Boo is never seen out and about.  Different rumors that have circulated about Maycomb of Boo are: that he stabbed his father with a pair of scissors; he eats squirrels, he comes out at night and peeks through people’s windows; he is actually dead and stuffed up the chimney.  With all of this gossip pertaining to Boo Radley, actual truths are difficult to differentiate from, as so many lies have been attached to his name.

Gossip is presented in To Kill A Mockingbird yet again when author Harper Lee introduces the Cunningham and Ewell families.  The Cunningham’s are brought up with the son, Walter, who attends school with Scout.  Through Scout’s little anecdote of the Cunningham’s, it is determined that it is not your typical Maycomb family.  The Cunningham’s work in different ways than most in the town, and everyone in the county knows their story.  Thus so, they are grouped apart from the majority of Maycomb.  Another family, the Ewell’s are described to the reader as a filthy, for no good people, and this is understood throughout the town like the back of their hands.  The two families are seen as outcasts to the townsfolk of Maycomb, due largely in part to Harper Lee’s excellent use of gossip in To Kill A Mockingbird.

Harper Lee

On April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, Alabama, Nelle Harper Lee was born.  The American author, famous for writing the classic, To Kill A Mockingbird, was the youngest of four children.  Her father was a lawyer who worked in the Alabama state legislature while her mother suffered from mental illness for most of Lee's young life.  One of Lee's closest childhood friends was another writer-to-be, Truman Capote.  After graduating from high school, Lee attended Huntingdon College in Montgomery then transferred to the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, where she studied law.  She spent the summer before her senior year as an exchange student at Oxford University in England, but when she returned to the States for her fall semester, Lee dropped out of law school.  She later moved to New York City in 1949 to follow her dreams of becoming a writer.  In 1960 she published her famous work To Kill A Mockingbird, winning the Pulitzer Prize for her work a year later.  Ever since the publication, Lee has stayed on the down-low, refusing interviews and staying hidden in her homes in New York City and Monroeville.  To Kill A Mockingbird was Harper Lee's sole book, but nonetheless proved to be a classic American novel for generations and generations to come.




Sources:
http://www.harperlee.com/bio.htm
http://www.biography.com/articles/Harper-Lee-9377021?part=2
http://www.teenreads.com/authors/au-lee-harper.asp
http://www.nndb.com/people/572/000025497/