Let us not pretend that Bob Ewell and the majority of the Maycomb community are the last racists in the United States of America. They have company.

As president of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), my sensibilities are not delicate. I grew up in South Carolina as the civil war reached its climax, a place and time where racism was unambiguous and often violent. I would be the last person to deny that we have made remarkable progress against racial prejudice. However, with Tom Robinson’s recent trial, it is obvious that we still have a long way to go.

The trial of Tom Robinson exemplified the entrenched prejudice that many, not only in Maycomb but also in the United States, hold against the Negroes in …show more content…
While the notion of lynching is abhorrent to our Christian community , it is clear that certain members of our society have yet to grasp this concept, as seen by the 200 cases of illegal lynching that have occurred in the past decade.

We recall the Thirteenth Amendment having abolished slavery in 1865, however it is obvious that many in the White community still view us Black men as unworthy of justice in a court of law. Despite the efforts of the brilliant lawyer Mr. Atticus Finch to present a convincing case, Mr Robinson was still unjustly convicted. Unfortunately, the twelve jurors, all White and by no means “a jury of his peers” ensured that Robinson’s sentence was not one that was justified by his actions, but rather one that was “deserved” by his skin colour. Disgraceful.

In light of this injustice, we are reminded of the nine black teenagers who, all but one, were convicted and sentenced to death in 1931, Scottsboro, Alabama. Similarities are seen in the way that, despite an overwhelming lack of concrete evidence against the individuals in question, these men faced a real threat of lynching during the trial. They were eventually