To Kill a Mockingbird By quinton Stewart

The author Harper Lee grew up during the 1930's and 1960's times then were quite different than they are now, for a multitude of reasons. Some of these reasons are, The Great Depression, Women's Rights, The Murder of Emmitt Till, and Jim Crow Laws, just to name a few.

The first reason the times were different is The Great Depression. According to washington.edu almost 30 million Americans had lost their source of income. During these times, extreme poverty was very common. This effected a great deal of Americans, and was a very tough time for many. Life was a daily struggle, and many people lost their homes. This caused them to live their lives on the road or railway. According to newdeal.feri 20% of children were without proper nourishment or clothing. If you were to grow up in this time, it would be very tough to go through, and it would most likely change the way you see things for the rest of your life.

The second reason these times were different is because women didn't have as many rights. They were also commonly prejudiced against, for example, while it was not illegal for women to have a job, it would be very awkward and uncommon, even frowned upon for a women to try to get a job other than the common ones, such as teachers, or nurses. In those times women were seen as second class citizens and not seen as equals to males. However, in these times, women were slowly earning more rights. Nonetheless it would be difficult to grow up in these times as a women if you aspired to be more than what society tells you to.

The third thing that effected growing up in this time was what caused the Emmitt Till murder, this was the racial tension in America at that time. During these times, segregation was present and this led to a lot of hatred between the whites and non-whites. Just about everywhere you went if you saw someone of another race, there was a lot of awkwardness that led to hatred and intolerance. During The Great Depression, racial violence spiked according to loc.gov. Many hate crimes caused by racial tension increased racial tension, and this cycle led to an ever increasing division between the races of America. If you were to grow up in this time, you would be raised to be racist and prejudiced, in my opinion, racism is learned, not developed naturally.

The last thing I am going to reference are the Jim Crow Laws. The Jim Crow Laws were a set of laws that made sure that blacks were treated as second class citizens and insured that they were segregated against. According to ferris.edu blacks were not even allowed to shake a white persons hand. Obviously this would effect the way people thought of each other, as well as the many other rules. These rules would falsely teach young people that this is the correct way to teach people of other decent. Therefore this not only effected adults, but insured that racism would be a continuing evil.

In conclusion, growing up in these times were very different than they are now, most of these things are bad. Racism was openly practiced, taught, and enforced. Not only that but women did not have the same rights as men. So growing up in these times would change how you thought of, and see things.

Credits:

Created with images by PublicDomainImages - "polyglottos mimus head" • Leroy_Skalstad - "people homeless woman" • Me in ME - "Womens' Voting Rights Pioneers" • jacquesy_m - "'RACISM/THERE IS MORE TO LEARN' Dominic Jacques" • elycefeliz - "Giles B. Jackson" • foundin_a_attic - "1920s seaside brown album 88383737"

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