The Civil Rights Era

Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird during the beginning of the Civil Rights era (from about 1955 to 1958). Alabama was very much in the news at this time with the Montgomery bus boycott, Martin Luther King's rise to leadership and Autherine Lucy's attempt to attend graduate school at the University of Alabama.

Lee was well known on the University of Alabama campus as editor of the politically satirical student newspaper. After graduation, she entered law school, leaving one semester short of receiving a law degree. Lee's book was published in 1960, a time of tumultuous events and racial strife as the struggle in the Civil Rights movement grew violent and spread into cities across the nation.

The novel climbed to the top of the New York Times Best Seller's list as it began to make its remarkable impact on a divided nation. A year after its publication Lee worked as a consultant on the film adaptation of the novel and the screenplay written by Horton Foote. The film was released in 1962 and went on to receive five Academy Award nominations, winning three.

Find out more about the Civil Rights Movement:
http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-55-65/index.html
http://www.civilrights.org/library/permanent_collection/resources/crchron.html

To Kill a Mockingbird in the Civil Rights Era: A Chronology

The following are major events of the Civil Rights Movement. Certain events will have corresponding QuickTime movies (click on the icon) which may be downloaded and viewed. In order to download and view these clips you will need to have a QuickTime plug-in which may be obtained from http://www.quicktime.apple.com/sw/sw.html.

1954 In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the decision widely regarded as having sparked the modern civil rights era, the Supreme Court rules deliberate public school segregation illegal, effectively over turning 'separate but equal' doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson. (1.9 MB) 1955 Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American from Chicago, is beaten, shot and lynched by whites after allegedly whistling at a white woman in a store in Mississippi. Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery city bus. (1 MB) 1956 In Alabama, Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man, precipitating the Montgomery bus boycott, led by Martin Luther King, Jr. Autherine Lucy receives a letter granting permission to enroll at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. She is the first African American admitted to the state school. (4.4 MB) In January 1956, following the successful Montgomery bus boycott, Martin Luther King, Jr 's home is bombed by local segregationists. Motions are filed in U.S. District Court calling for an end to bus segregation. Violence erupts on the campus of the University of Alabama and in the streets of Tuscaloosa, continuing for three days. Autherine Lucy is forced to flee the University of Alabama campus; the University's Board of Trustees bars her from campus. Autherine Lucy ordered by the courts to be re-admitted to the University of Alabama, only to be expelled by Board of Trustees. Montgomery bus boycott ends in victory December 21, after the city announces it will comply with a November Supreme Court ruling declaring segregation on buses illegal. 1957 In September, federal troops are sent to Little Rock, Arkansas, to protect nine African American students at Central High School from white mobs trying to block the school's integration and to enforce court-ordered desegregation of schools. (918 K) Alaska and Hawaii are admitted as states. Hawaii, the 50th state, elects Hiram Fong (of Chinese ancestry) and Daniel Inouye (of Japanese ancestry) to represent them in Congress, the first two Asian Americans to serve in that body. 1960 In Greensboro, N.C., the first lunch counter sit-in by four African American college students inspires more throughout the South. To Kill a Mockingbird is published. Shoots to top of NY Times Best Seller list. 1961 James Meredith becomes the first African American student admitted to the University of Mississippi. Freedom Riders begin arriving in the deep South to test new Interstate Commerce Commission regulations and court orders barring segregation in interstate transportation. Violence necessitates the deployment of federal troops. (1.6 MB) Violence erupts at the University of Mississippi over integration. Harper Lee wins the Pulitzer Prize for Literature. 1962 The United Farm Workers Union, under the leadership of Cesar Chavez, organizes to win bargaining power for Mexican American agricultural workers. The film, To Kill a Mockingbird, is released. The screen adaptation by Horton Foote receives 5 Academy Award nominations. 1963 Dogs and power hoses are directed at peaceful demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama. Civil rights leader Medgar W. Evers is murdered at his home in Jackson, Mississippi. Over a quarter of a million people participate in the March on Washington on August 28, 1963, and hear Martin Luther King, Jr., deliver his "I Have a Dream" speech. A Birmingham church is bombed on September 15, killing four African American girls attending Sunday school: Denise McNair, age 11, and Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Adie Mae Collins, all 14 years old. 1964 Civil rights workers James Chaney, Mickey Schwerner and Andrew Goodman are kidnapped and murdered near Philadelphia, Mississippi, by white law enforcement officials and members of the Ku Klux Klan. On July 2, President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the 1964 Civil Rights Act. 1965 March for Voting Rights is held in Selma, Alabama. The Voting Rights Act passes and is signed into law on August 6, effectively ending literacy tests and a host of other obstacles used to disenfranchise African Americans and other minorities. 1992 May 9, Autherine Lucy receives her Masters degree in education from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. A portrait of her is unveiled in Ferguson Center, the busiest building on campus.