From <i>Mockingbird</i> to <i>Watchman</i>: A Changing Alabama
From Mockingbird to Watchman: A Changing Alabama
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Actors Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch and Brock Peters as Tom Robinson in the film 'To Kill a Mockingbird', 1962.Silver Screen Collection / Getty Images
Harper Lee’s new novel Go Set A Watchman, released Tuesday,takes place two decades years after the Depression-era To Kill a Mockingbird. In the new book, Jean Louise “Scout” Finch returns to her Alabama home in the 1950s, only to find a world on the cusp of the Civil Rights Movement. Both novels grapple with issues of racism and justice, social issues that evolved dramatically — in real life as in the books — during the intervening years. Following World War II, desegregation was on the mind in Alabama of the mid-1950s. But Lee’s home state, at the time of Watchman’s narrative, still had a rough road ahead.
Here are some of the real historical events that would have shaped Scout’s world:
The Mockingbird Alabama and Jim Crow
In 1933, a court case that helped inspire the courtroom narrative of To Kill A Mockingbird captivated attentions and headlines in real-life Alabama: the trial of the African-American teenagers dubbed the Scottsboro Boys, whom two white women had accused of rape.
When eight of the teenagers were convicted and initially condemned to death by an all-white jury in Scottsboro, Ala., the subsequent series of appeals brought national scrutiny to the justice denied to black defendants. The Supreme Court ruled against Alabama’s “selective jury system,” calling for new trials in 1933. TIME followed the cases as they repeatedly rose to the Supreme Court and returned to Alabama. (Read part of that original coverage here.)
Throughout Southern states, Jim Crow laws remained steadfast, mandating “separate but equal” facilities and services, which were far from equal in practice. Alabama systematically denied African Americans their voting rights by means of poll taxes. And while Ku Klux Klan activity was in decline, lynchings still took place within the state. Unsurprisingly, many African Americans left Alabama to move north or west throughout the decade and afterward as part of the Great Migration.
“Defense Boom in Dixie”
The Second World War catalyzed change for Alabama. The South grew from “the Nation’s number one economic problem,” as President Franklin D. Roosevelt called the region in 1938, to a developing region of industrial growth and wartime job opportunity. In 1941, TIME reported on Alabama’s steel mills expanding, as well as the new facilities for aluminum, gunpowder, ammunition and anti-aircraft shells.
Alabama was also home to the nation’s first African-American fighter squadron. The Army Air Forces established the 99th Fighter Squadron in July of 1941, training an all-black unit to operate aircraft. The squadron incited anger, especially for surrounding farmers who “watched their cheap help skitter off the fields to get better jobs at the Army post.” An officer quelled their contempt by calling a meeting and telling them “that this is just what Hitler wanted, just this kind of division among the U.S. people; Goebbels would be delighted.” Wartime necessity continued to break down racial barriers when Roosevelt published Executive Order 8802 in 1941, barring any racial discrimination in the defense industry.
Rumbles of Change
Several former Ku Klux Klan members rose to power on the state and national level in the 1930s: Bibb Graves, elected Alabama Governor in 1936, had reportedly been a Klan chapter head, and Alabama’s Senator Hugo La Fayette Black caused a national scandal when it came out he had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan before he was confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice in 1937.
Meanwhile, the NAACP advanced legislation to suppress the lynching that was a threat to Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird and that still took place in 1930s Alabama; the NAACP recorded eight instances in 1937, and then six in 1938. Anti-lynching bills went before the House and Senate, falling due to lack of votes and filibusters but gaining more momentum and strength each time.
But after the war, perspectives on race began to shift. When Ku Klux Klan mobs saw a brief resurgence around 1949, Alabama became the first state to make it a misdemeanor to appear in public wearing masks. In the Birmingham area, the state took 17 white men to trial for their participation in Klan mob intimidation. (That particular case wasn’t a complete victory for justice, however, as the trials were delayed when the judge and juries were found to be former Ku Klux Klan members; only two trials happened and both of those defendants were acquitted).
Desegregation and Separatism
The early 1950s were the time of Brown v. Board of Education, which declared that school segregation was unconstitutional. Though that case was decided in May 1954 and elaborated upon the following year, the first of the cases that were eventually combined into that landmark ruling began as early as 1950. It would have been abundantly clear that segregation could no longer stand unchallenged. As desegregation spread, indignant citizens began forming White Citizens’ Councils — like the Maycomb County Citizens’ Council that appears in Go Set a Watchman — that brought people together to coordinate resistance to the change.
Alabama in particular put up strong opposition to integrated schools; in September of 1955, TIME graded the state with an “F” because none of its school districts had made moves to desegregate. The state legislature passed a bill, over the governor’s veto, allowing school boards to place students according to best fit; later it resolved that the Supreme Court’s ruling was null and void altogether.
Go Set A Watchman takes place at the very beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. Before 1955 was finished, Alabama would see Rosa Parks launch the Montgomery Bus Boycott. In 1956, Autherine Lucy would become the first black student to enroll in the University of Alabama, Harper Lee’s own alma mater. Segregationists were still fighting hard, but that was because they had more to fight against.
For the Alabama of To Kill A Mockingbird, though that book’s characters have become symbols of justice, equality is just an idea. For the Alabama of Go Set A Watchman, the prospect of equality is still inflammatory — but all the more real.
Read TIME’s original 1960 review of To Kill a Mockingbird, here in the TIME Vault: About Life & Little Girls
Writers on Their Favorite Young Adult Books
Laura Hillenbrand, Author of Unbroken.
"Come on Seabiscuitby Ralph Moody. When I was eight years old, I bought this battered paperback for a quarter at a neighborhood fair. Enthralled, I read it over and over, until the cover fell off and the pages parted from the spine. I had to hold the book together with a rubber band. The story stayed with me, and many years later, it would inspire me to become an author myself."Bill O'Leary—The Washington Post/Getty ImagesJames Patterson, Author of Along Came a Spider.
"As a kid, Peter Pan was one of a few books that I truly enjoyed. It’s got pirates, fairies, mermaids—what’s not to like? When I was starting to write
Maximum Ride, my first series for kids, I had Mr. Barrie’s
story in the back of my mind."Brian Harkin—MCT/Getty ImagesMichael Lewis, Author of
Flash Boys.
“As a kid I lived on a steady diet of The Hardy Boysand Archie comic books, without the slightest sense there was anything better I might be doing with my time.”Lucas Jackson—Reuters/CorbisJesmyn Ward, Author of Men We Reaped.
"When I was around eight or so, I discovered The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley at my local book fair. I charmed one of my cousins into buying it for me, and then I devoured it. The heroine is an illegitimate princess who hunts dragons in an attempt to find some place for herself in her father's kingdom; I loved the book because the heroine is tough, stubborn, and smart, and she takes on a world bent on making her less than she is. I empathized."Ulf Andersen—Getty ImagesDave Eggers, Author of A Hologram for the King.
"Barbara McClintock's
Adèle & Simon
books are, I think, contemporary classics. McClintock's artwork is ridiculously beautiful and because readers are asked to find objects that Simon has lost during various
trips—including turn-of-the-century Paris and the USA—the books reward very close attention."Tina Fineberg—APCurtis Sittenfeld, Author of
Sisterland.
“I've always loved the George and Martha books by James Marshall. These tales of two hippo BFFs are wonderfully irreverent and full of both misbehavior and compassion.”Haraz Ghanbari—APJennifer Weiner, Author of All Fall Down.
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The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.
"The Great Brain, by John D. Fitzgerald. Set in a tiny town in Utah in the late 1890's, The Great Brain series recounts the mischief and miracles wrought by Tom Fitzgerald through the eyes of his ordinary-brained younger brother John. You idolize Tom's brilliance—his schemes make him more powerful and exciting than anybody else—but you can't escape his selfishness or his greed. I think as a kid I appreciated liberation from the regular moral categories."Katy Winn—CorbisJohn Irving, Author of
The Cider House Rules.
"The Doubtful Guest by Edward Gorey. Edward Gorey is the rare writer-artist whose work has a lasting effect on children and adults."Aaron Vincent Elkaim—APMatthew Quick, Author of
The Silver Linings Playbook.
“Although I can't recall the title of a single edition, I remember reading and loving many Choose Your Own Adventure novels when I was a kid. The series made you the protagonist and every so many pages you would come to a question. There were options listed and corresponding page numbers. I remember reading each path regardless of my choice, thumbing furiously forward and backward through the maze-like stories. In retrospect, I realize this active-reading process was perhaps my first lesson on story structure.”Richard Vogel—APAdelle Waldman, Author of
The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.
“As a teenager, my favorite author, hands down, was Norma Klein, whom I would describe as Judy Blume for a slightly older set—or Woody Allen for a younger set. Klein wrote wry, psychologically acute novels about the romantic lives of smart New York teenagers. With intelligence and humanity, Klein describes crushes, relationships, sex, breakups and complicated friendships. Equally intriguing to me was the milieu. As someone growing up in the suburbs—who had little to do for fun but go to the mall or the multiplex—the New York Klein described was a revelation: kids took the subway to museums, walked around the Village and saw old movies at art house theaters. I live in New York today, in large part because Norma Klein’s books. She was very prolific until her death in 1989, but for a good taste of her work, try Domestic Arrangements, about a precocious 14-year-old with an eccentric, intellectual family and a steamy love life.”Ulf Andersen—Getty ImagesAndy Cohen, Author of
The Andy Cohen Diaries.
“I loved the Encyclopedia Brown books. They were about as butch as I got as a young boy (not that they were even in the same league as The Hardy Boys, which I stayed away from). Simple to understand and there was always a shot you could figure out the mystery on your own.”Charles Sykes—APGillian Flynn, Author of
Gone Girl.
“The Westing Game completely charmed me as a kid: the clever mystery, the complex characters (especially the grownups—who knew they had lives too?) and the nasty, fantastic Tabitha Ruth Wexler. I still read it once a year.”M. Spencer Green—APJerry Spinelli, Author of
Maniac Magee.
"When I was 12 I thought breaking a tackle in sandlot football was the hardest thing a person could do. And then I read Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl. It instantly inflated both my worlds. My planet now stretched from the West End of Norristown, PA, to the vast reaches of the Pacific. And the other world—the world of my dreams, my future—swelled to the stars. I remember that I closed the book with a sense of both ending and beginning. He had arrived, he had done it. And I—as if his feat had given me permission—I could launch a voyage of my own. I knew not yet the vessel or the seas, but whatever the destination, I knew I could get there."Courtesy of Penguin Random HouseSimon Doonan, Author of
The Asylum: True Tales of Madness from a Life in Fashion.
“The most mind-expanding tome is still Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Like Led Zeppelin or Jimi or Bowie, Alice should be a right of passage for every kid. The trippy narrative, interwoven with the creepy John Tenniel illustrations, is a cosmic blast of creativity which can unlock the imagination of even the most conventional kid.”Jemal Countess—Getty ImagesDick Cavett, Author of
Brief Encounters.
"I’m told I began reading at age three. I soon fell deeply in love with Rufus M. (1943) by Eleanor Estes—a children’s author and children’s librarian. I’ve assumed it, and she, were long gone. It pains me to learn that she lived well into my later life and that I could have met her and expressed my delight. Damn.
Among many laugh-out-loud escapades, small boy Rufus plants beans in his garden to contribute to his not-wealthy family’s dinner table. Sadly, in his intrepid enthusiasm, he couldn’t resist going out at night and digging them up to see how they were doing. The book, still in print, is wonderful. It’s for kids, but certainly not only so. Get it."Richard Shotwell—Invision/APMartin Amis, Author of
The Zone of Interest.
"I must have read
Goodnight Moon to my children several thousand times, and I was never bored by it. The book has its own soporific poetry—and it quite often worked."Pako Mera—AP
