To Kill a Mockingbird has faced numerous attempts-in the first place, by explicitly right-wing forces-over the years by school boards to ban it. Second, these forces attack due process and the presumption of innocence, insisting that in cases of alleged sexual misconduct accusers “must be believed.” First, the latter insist-in the face of social and demographic evidence proving the opposite-that the races can’t get along and that the white population is hopelessly racist. The movie takes on a new significance, however, in light of the toxic arguments of contemporary identity politics advocates. The showing of To Kill a Mockingbird is timely and appropriate for a number of reasons, including for its calling attention to the struggle against entrenched racism in the South. Its themes of tolerance and compassion, and its related sensitivity toward the emotional life of children, have unquestionably influenced generations of young people in particular. Lee’s book, which has sold more than 30 million copies and been translated into 40 languages, is deservedly beloved. The horrifying murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till, a black youth, in 1955 in Mississippi was still a fresh wound. Lett was initially sentenced to death, but his sentence was reduced to life and he died in prison. Lee, a native Alabaman born in 1926, was influenced by the case of the Scottsboro Boys in 1931 and the 1934 trial in Monroeville, Alabama, (Lee’s hometown) of Walter Lett, a black former convict, accused of sexual assault by a poor white woman. The writing of To Kill a Mockingbird was made possible in part by the mass struggles of the Civil Rights movement, and it further encouraged them. Atticus opposes the legal frame-up in a small Alabama town of an African-American falsely accused of raping a white woman during the period of Jim Crow segregation. Set in the Depression era of the 1930s, the book and movie center on attorney Atticus Finch and his daughter Scout. Pakula and with a screenplay by Horton Foote, the movie is based on Harper Lee’s 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same title. Directed by Robert Mulligan, produced by Alan J. Fathom Events, TCM and Universal Pictures are screening To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) in select cinemas this week.
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