How does the kkk relate to to kill a mockingbird

All images are rights-cleared for non-commercial, educational use--ideal for use in lesson plans, student projects, school websites, and beyond.

Britannica High School Edition explores the updated encyclopedia including thousands of articles, biographies, videos, images and websites. Student Resources In Context provides contextual information on a broad range of topics, people, places, and events, including access to full-text magazines, academic journals, news articles, primary source documents, images, videos, audio files and links to vetted websites.

For remote access: Password: knights. US History in Context provides contextual information on hundreds of the most significant people, events and topics in US History via full-text magazines, academic journals, news articles, primary source documents, images, videos, audio files and links to vetted websites.

Ku Klux Klan History. Citation Tools. NoodleTools is an online research management platform that promotes critical thinking and authentic research. The KKK, as they became known, began as early as in America. They often wore white hoods to protect their identity and to make themselves appear even more frightening to their victims.

They fight for white supremacy over black people and have been responsible for many of the tortures and lynchings that have happened to black people. Way back about nineteen twenty there was a Klan, but it was a political organization more than anything.

This is one of the very few times when Atticus is wrong. He has underestimated the passionate hatred of black people felt by some of the white inhabitants of Maycomb and how this will drive them to attempt an act of pure hatred such as lynching.

By the time Harper Lee was writing To Kill a Mockingbird black people were trying to change the constant racism they were faced with. It is important to emphasize how vitriolic and wounding her language is. Moreover, it is essential to have students understand just what Mrs. Dubose does to Scout and Jem in their hours with her.

Here, day after day, an adult, respected, indeed admired by their father and perhaps by the entire town, seeks to communicate the white supremacist heritage of the Old South to Jem and Scout, in effect to a new generation of Southerners.

Yet Atticus cannot bring himself to point out how morally reprehensible that legacy is. When he seeks to explain Mrs. Most certainly, he has long been aware of Mrs. In chapter 11 Scout, Jem, and Atticus judge the old woman. It is important to remind students that these judgments are not those of the six-year-old Scout or the nine-year-old Jem but rather those of the adult Scout, the narrator, who is looking back on her past and offering a considered assessment of it.

And her assessment of Mrs. Dubose sharply contradicts that of Atticus who believed Mrs. Upon hearing Atticus describe her that way, Jem throws the candy box that contained her posthumous peace offering into the fire. What does this action suggest about his attitude toward Mrs.

Why does Atticus hold Mrs. Dubose in such esteem? The answer lies, perhaps, in the type of courage he attributes to her. It is, in short, persisting in a lost cause. This is precisely the same sort of courage Atticus displays in his defense of Tom Robinson. Atticus may identify with Mrs. Dubose, seeing in her struggle with morphine addiction a reflection of his struggle with the Robinson case. Who is correct about Mrs. Dubose, Atticus or his children? The lesson asks students to decide.

The conclusion of chapter 11, richly ambiguous, offers little guidance. Is he simply trying to calm down after his confrontation with his father? Is he reconsidering his opinion of Mrs. Is he questioning the moral judgment of his father who seems to evince an easy, complacent acceptance of the racist views that stung him into a rage? And what about Atticus? When he settles back to read the local paper, is he simply resuming his bookish ways, or is he evading the truth about Mrs.

Dubose and the community of Maycomb by distracting himself with the comforting minutiae of life in his little town? This lesson is divided into two parts, both accessible below. The student version, an interactive PDF, contains all of the above except the responses to the close reading questions and the follow-up assignment.

To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the most popular novels ever to be published in the United States. Since it appeared in , millions of copies have been sold, and in it was made into an award-winning movie. Readers have embraced its protagonist, lawyer Atticus Finch, as a hero, a brave man who follows his conscience in the pursuit of justice even though most of his neighbors oppose him, and he knows his cause is lost. Even though the racism of the Atticus who appears in Go Set a Watchman , the first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird published in , has disappointed many, there is much to admire in him as he was portrayed in Nonetheless, as careful readers we must seek to understand him fully.

This lesson follows suggestions in chapter 11 that raise questions about the scope and depth of his moral vision. Chapter 11, which concludes part one of the novel, ends the largely idyllic portrayal of Maycomb and deepens the foreshadowing of the tragedy we encounter in part two. Chiefly, however, it introduces Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose, a minor but important character. This lesson examines what she represents; how she functions in the novel, and how Scout, Jem, and Atticus respond to her.

Scout, Jem, and Atticus judge Mrs. Dubose, and this lesson asks you to judge their judgments. Scout and Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose. What position does Mrs. If it is impossible for the Finch children to get to town without passing Mrs.

Thus her home is located at a key entry point to the heart of Maycomb. One might say that she controls the approach to the town from one direction. What does CSA stand for? Confederate States of America, the official name of the government that attempted to secede from the United States in What does the fact that Mrs.

Obviously, it suggests that no one knows for sure if she is concealing a gun, but it also suggests that she is enough of a public presence in the town to be the subject of the sort of speculation and discussion that spawn rumor. When Scout and Jem pass her house, Mrs.

It has military connotations, suggesting the placement of soldiers in strategic locations. Considering that Mrs. She presents her as a sentinel or guard who is on watch to protect the town in some way. What does Mrs. Dubose do from her outpost on the porch? She questions people who pass by, rather in the way a guard might. She also passes judgment on their behavior.