'To Kill a Mockingbird' is a perfect book to use as an example to show what racism was in America in the 20's and 30's.

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To Kill a Mockingbird

'To Kill a Mockingbird' is a perfect book to use as an example to show what racism was in America in the 20's and 30's. In America, life was very different in the 20s and 30s. Sure, televisions were just appearing and technology in general wasn't nearly as advanced as it is today. These points however, though relevant, are not relevant to my point. No, I'm really focusing on racism in these first few decades of the century. 'To Kill a Mockingbird' has a town called Maycomb in it, and this town, is stereo typically of what a town in the southern United States would have been like in these early years. In the book, as in real life back then, racism was a part of every day life. In some states, slaves still existed even. It was a dark and cruel world for all blacks back then. They weren't considered as equals. Tom Robinson is accused of committing a crime which he didn't do in essence, because he was black. They had to blame it on someone and if the blame could go on a 'nigger' then all the better.

In the trial, Tom Robinson had so much evidence pointing out that he was innocent but he was still charge guilty. Why? Because he was black, it was as simple as that. There was nothing that Atticus could have done. Even if there had been a mountain of evidence against Bob Ewell, Tom would still have been found guilty. In the world back then, in Maycomb county, people were racist and they didn't think it was wrong because they didn't know any better. You even see Scout slowly become one. She says things like, 'He's just a nigger.'. Racism isn't even rebelled against in Maycomb by the blacks because they too, don't know any better. They live their lives in appalling conditions but they don't realise that as they have never lived any other way. Unfortunately, people took advantage of them not caring what happened to them because they were just 'niggers'. Unfortunately, in some parts of the world today, things haven't changed.

In the 1800s, a group called the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan were formed by veteran fighters of the Confederate army during the American civil war. This group's name came from the Greek word Kluklos, which means brotherhood. This group was dedicated to protecting the south from 'invaders' or blacks, Jews or gays. They believed that the Aryan race had to regain control over the South and blacks were inferior. This group formed into different sections and basically became a cult or otherwise known as a sect. They were fundamentalists who wore white robes and carried torches. They hanged black people for public entertainment and unfortunately, at the time, they had many supporters. After a few years, this group diminished its actions and it died down. It unfortunately came back strong in the 1920s and 30s. This group, unfortunately, became much more organised and changed from just a disorganised group of people going around on horses hanging people, to an organised group which had a grip over the whole country, from east to west, with rulers with crazy names such as, 'Grand Titan' or 'Grand Cyclops'.
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These names may sound crazy and silly but this generation of Klan were very serious indeed and I think in essence, the rules really changed. The Civil war was a thing of the past and it was no longer the case of, 'Protecting the confederacy', it was just now, basically, a racist group. Fortunately, as horrible as the first and second world war were, they distracted the American people away from the KKK and the KKK died down again. Unluckily, it was not gone forever as one would have hoped. It came back in the late fifties. From ...

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