Martin Luther King once declared, “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. “ This widely known quote shows that the color of a person should not limit the from doing anything. The topic of racism is frequently visited in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, a novel that takes place during the Great Depression. It focuses on the life of Scout Finch, her brother and the neighborhood she has grown up in, Maycomb County. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee uses racism in the trial scene to show that some people are treated unjustly due to their status. This theme is used to represent characters in the novel to show how race creates tension between the people of Maycomb. The treatment of Tom Robinson during the trial scene reveals that people of the …show more content…
As a result of being of the black race, Lee reveals through the characterization of a key character in the novel-Tom Robinson- that people are treated unjustly in many ways. Characters like Mr Gilmer are shown to symbolize the tension between the black and the whites. To Kill a Mockingbird clearly proves that race can affect the way that people are treated and viewed in society . This is shown by the actions and words chosen by multiple characters in this novel. Even now in the future, racism continues to be a big part of our lives and has caused many political debates and arguments. A quote said by our president, Barack Obama states, “Racism. We are not cured of it. And it's not just a matter of it not being polite to say 'nigger' in public. That's not the measure of whether racism still exists or not. It's not just a matter of overt discrimination. Societies don't overnight completely erase everything that happened 200-300 years