A Remarkable Sixty-Four-Year-Old Novel by Susan Van Kirk

 

When To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee came out in 1960, I was fourteen. In those days before the Civil Rights Movement, it was an explosive novel. A couple of years later, I read it in high school and fell in love with Atticus Finch, Scout, and Jem. I’ve re-read it every decade since then.

 

Last week was Banned Books Week in America, and since I’m a week later as a blogger on WWK, I thought I’d go back and mention this remarkable book that has sold ten million copies and been banned in some schools. It’s also been made into a movie and a play, and on its fiftieth anniversary, I watched the film again with an introduction by then-President Obama reminding us about the values we share and the timelessness of human decency.

 

When I read it as a teenager, I railed at the injustice of Tom Robinson’s death and admired the deeply felt and simply rendered lessons of a small town, white attorney. Re-reading it in later years, I am reminded of the violent, explosive, and ugly history of race relations in America. But I also marvel at the many scenes of decency and social justice. A particularly iconic scene that stays with me is the night the mob descends on the jail to kill Tom Robinson. But Jean Louise (Scout) shames them with her innocence. The timelessness of the written word!

 

Why would such a book be banned? James La Rue, Director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, said that most challenges to this book cite “strong language, discussion of sexuality and rape, and the use of the n-word.” Other criticisms have cited a “white savior character” who comes in to save the day.

 

When Nelle Harper Lee authored her greatest novel, she based it on memories of her family and
neighbors and an event she remembered in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama. Her father and older brother were the inspirations for Atticus Finch and Jem. Her mother’s maiden name was Finch, and her father was a newspaper reporter and later a lawyer who defended, unsuccessfully, two Black men in the town. In interviews, she talked about her book reflecting race relations in the 1930s South.

 

The morality of treating others with respect and kindness and protecting the innocent rather than hurting them are themes that reverberate throughout the story. While it had multiple edits, the final manuscript is powerful because of the unforgettable voice of Scout, the narrator and protagonist. In our never-ending struggle to treat people based on their character, the lessons of To Kill a Mockingbird still hold true. I must admit when Atticus Finch leaves that courtroom and the entire balcony stands up, I am always moved to tears. As the minister says to the Finch children and Dill, “Miss Jean Louise. Stand up! Your father’s passing.”

 

Of course, neither the book nor the film has a happy ending. Such endings seldom happen in books or films about this subject and period in American History. But even so, To Kill a Mockingbird—whether novel or film or play—reminds us that a society’s decency and moral character is judged by how it treats its poorest, its outcasts, its mockingbirds. It forces us to think. And like many books that cause us to pause, reflect, and consider our own values, that makes it a target for book-banners.