Trayvon Martin To Kill A Mockingbird

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“Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. […] It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free” (King). Over 50 years ago in August of 1963 in Washington D.C., college students, both white and black, from around the nation began to march for civil rights and freedom for African Americans. At the Lincoln Memorial a crowd of people began to form, where Martin Luther King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream Speech”, mentioning how people still discriminate against African Americans although they have been told they are free. Similarly, themes like this occur in literary works such as To…show more content…
The case of Trayvon Martin closely resembles, yet also contradicts the trial of Tom Robinson seen in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. In Sanford, Florida on February 26th, 2012, George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch captain, shot and killed Trayvon Martin (CNN). Similarly, in To Kill a Mockingbird, Bob Ewell accuses Tom Robinson of raping his daughter Mayella Ewell. Similarly, George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin. Both men were accused of crimes based solely on their skin color and race. At one point, Jem and Atticus talk about how Jem does not believe that Tom Robinson deserved the death sentence. Atticus begins to tell Jem, “Tom Robinson's a colored man, Jem. No jury in this part of the world's going to say 'We think you're guilty, but not very' on a charge like that. It was either a straight acquittal or nothing” (219). This quote demonstrates how although strong evidence shows that Tom Robinson did not commit any crimes, the jury still convicts him due to the color of his skin. This relates to the way Trayvon Martin ended up dead after Zimmerman shot and killed him. Many people hearing about this…show more content…
In the case of Tom Robinson, most white patrons of Maycomb reacted to it on the side of the court and Bob Ewell. The public acted so biased towards Tom that people go to the trial just to see Tom Robinson tried and convicted of rape. At one point before the trial a group of men want to kill him for his wrongdoing. “In ones and twos, men got out of the cars. Shadows became substance as light revealed solid shapes moving toward the jail door… “You know what we want,” another man said “get aside from the door, Mr. Finch” (172). The reaction of the public differs greatly from the reaction to Tom Robinson. Across the United States, riots started on behalf of the verdict of Trayvon Martin. A majority of the nation’s African American population stood up to the verdict. Riots in Los Angeles and other major cities left a lasting imprint of the trial. Also, several celebrities including Beyoncé and Barack Obama commented on the verdict shortly after calling it “a tragedy for America”. During the mayhem, police told Zimmerman to wear a bullet proof vest when going outside. Also, Zimmerman went into hiding after receiving death threats on Twitter after the incident. The two differ in the way that in the case of Tom Robinson, the community reacted by wanting to kill and convict Tom Robinson, while in the case of Trayvon Martin the
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