The Great Depression: A time of substantial poverty, homelessness, and unemployment (McCabe 12). The stock market crash of 1929 triggered the Great Depression, which did not come to an end until 1941 (McCabe 12). The Great Depression and other various events in the 1930’s inspired Harper Lee’s world renown novel, To Kill A Mockingbird. Three events that profoundly correspond to the novel are the Jim Crow laws, mob mentality, and the Scottsboro trials.

The first influence on Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird are the Jim Crow laws. The Jim Crow laws are a set of anti-Black laws in order to keep whites on the top of the racial caste system (Pilgrim). The Jim Crow laws vary from ordering Blacks to let White motorists go first at intersections …show more content…
The reasoning behind why people join large groups with one common goal, also known as a mob, is a prime definition of mob mentality (Smith). A mob is a huge group of people who assemble after an act of unfairness and who feel invisible due to the enormous amount of members (Edmonds). Often mobs use a negative sense and produce harm to others (Smith). The majority of people who partake in a mob are doing so out of the peer pressure and a sense of belonging to a large group (Smith). Furthermore, those who join the group are mainly joining while not thinking straight (Edmonds). People tend to do what others around them are doing, therefore a numerous amount of people do not even think about what they are rioting over before they join in on the action (Smith). Others commit to the mob owing to the fact that many people are joining it, so it must be worthwhile (Smith). Throughout To Kill A Mockingbird, mob mentality shows up numerous times. One behavioral example of mob mentality that occurs during the novel is that people do not think clearly when participating in a mob (Smith). When Atticus leaves to go to the jail one night, multiple men show up to intimidate Atticus and Tom (Lee 201-202). The men are obviously not thinking straight because Scout is able to snap Mr. Cunningham out of his violent thoughts (Lee 205-206). When Scout begins talking to Mr. Cunningham, he realizes that he does not want …show more content…
The Scottsboro trials were a set of court cases for nine black boys who were wrongly accused of rape (Anderson). In a video, Carol Anderson explains that when two white women yelled “rape”, nine black boys got taken into custody instantly. The woman yelling “rape” provides a swell example of the motives of racism (Routledge). The women knew that the boys would be taken in because they are black, so they yelled in order for themselves to excel in dominance (Routledge). People did not even take the time to ask the women which man raped them and the basic questions about the rape (Anderson). Furthermore, they do not even take the boys’ side of events; They just automatically assume that the group of boys are guilty because they are black (Anderson). Some important information about the trial that is provided by Anderson is how the trial only took one day for all nine guys to be deemed guilty. Back in the 1930’s Whites were extremely prejudice towards Blacks (Anderson). Whites automatically judged Blacks and did not believe a word of what the Blacks had to say (Anderson). Having a one day trial for nine boys is clearly a disadvantage for the boys and provides an unjust trial (Anderson). The influence from the Scottsboro trials occurs multiple times throughout the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird. One example of an event that occurs in both trials is the amount of prejudice within