Context

To Kill a Mockingbird, first published in Philadelphia before rapidly growing in popularity,  was written in 1960 during the segregation period in the United States. The events in the novel are set 30 years before the book was published and takes place in the southern state of Alabama when racism was at its peak, and Black people were subject to extreme racial injustices (Potyk and White 2020). Due to the fact that this novel was published during the civil rights movement of 1954 to 1968, its popularity and subject matter became controversial in the public eye (Maher 2017). Additionally, topics the novel discussed such as voting rights and the justice system, were sensitive and often overlooked within the larger public context (Ako-Adjei 2017). The book contains repeated use of racial slurs and sensitive subject matter such as segregation laws and rape, as Harper Lee emphasized the theme of social realism, providing the reader with an accurate and realistic depiction of what American society was like within this time. For these reasons, the book garnered negative responses from many people, and was controversial at its time of publication. Many educators urged to incorporate the novel into their curriculums, many school boards and parents challenged the use of it in this way. When incorporating it into English classes, teachers were left uncomfortable as they did not know how to navigate conversations around racism. For example, the character Atticus has been identified as racist yet also as an idol. This conflict is an example of teachers struggling to generate a dialogue on difficult topics (Macaluso 2017). At times, teachers were urged by their superior figures not to teach it. Some schools even banned the book from any use whatsoever, depleting its popularity and accessibility to an extent (Maher 2013). This conflict exemplifies the importance of the preservation of texts, such as this novel, that include depictions of racial injustice, as it is still something that is occurring every day—especially within the American context. Despite the teachers’ discomfort in including this novel within their curriculum, novels such as this should be openly discussed, as they may help people to better understand what life was like in that time, and can also be connected to the modern-day Black experience.