Life & Times Books To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee Arrow Books Ltd, 50th Anniversary Edition, 2010, PB, 320pp, £8.99, 978-0099549482 Sacred Hunger Barry Unsworth Penguin Books, 1993, PB, 640pp, £8.99, 978-0140119930 A SHORT COURSE IN RACISM I grew up in the 1960s in a small country town imbued with a pervasive suspicion that the death of Queen Victoria may have been greatly exaggerated. Mind you, we experienced diversity in my school — there was a French boy called André. White, obviously. As children we sang unapologetically racist songs about the Italians and the Germans. Well, our fathers had won the war. So my adult life, like many white Brits of my age, has been a gradual journey towards a better understanding of human identity. Tolerance. Diversity. Celebration of difference within our common humanity. But perhaps it came as something of a shock that ‘Black Lives Matter’ was still a necessary mantra as we head towards the third decade of the 21st century. As a middle-class white liberal it has sometimes been hard for me to understand white privilege. My parents came from a working-class background, and as a grammar school boy I felt I worked for everything I got. But I have learned from talking to some of my friends. A younger friend, a church pastor, who has been repeatedly stopped by the police with no reason apparent but his skin colour. A high-flying manager responsible for the running of a large chunk of Transport for London who, at a TFL social gathering, was assumed without enquiry to be a train guard or a porter. There is an inequity of esteem somewhere deep within the Western psyche. I don’t like it and I don’t really understand why we still have it. And if we will not address it in ourselves we could easily find ourselves kneeling on someone else’s neck — and we know that’s not always metaphorical. So I would like to tell you about my own recent refresher course in racism via two classic prize-winning novels. I recently read a student’s work that referred to Harper Lee’s 1961 Pulitzerwinning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. I thought it was about time I actually read it. It is a staggeringly good novel. It defuses our instinctive reaction of disgust at overt and murderous racial inequality by telling the story through the eyes of a child, Scout, Atticus Finch’s precocious but perceptive daughter. Distancing us by one step from the events themselves releases the author from telling us what to think. We ourselves are enabled to work out the lives of the black population of Alabama in the 1930s. They were still seen as morally and intellectually inferior, still desperately poor, and still had little control over their lives. How much difference had the abolition of slavery actually made? And how much progress has been made since, for the present peoples of Birmingham, Alabama, or Birmingham, UK? Some certainly, but why only some? And why might things even be drifting backwards from the heady days of the 1960s? 1992 Booker Prize-winning Sacred Hunger. Again, a staggeringly good novel. This time about the slave trade in the middle of the 18th century. The cruelty that is possible between humans once we identify another as other is shocking and deeply depressing. But we see it ever in the human condition. The 7th century bce defensive walls at Choirokoitia, the Carthaginians’ treatment of the Romans, the Romans’ treatment of, well, pretty much everyone. Fill in the blanks yourself up to Stalin, Hitler, the Nanjing Massacre, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, extraordinary rendition, the Rwandan genocide, the Bosnian genocide, Guantanamo Bay, ISIS, and drone attacks on other people’s citizens. And what of ourselves? How careful are we about who sews our clothes or grows our mangetout? Before we shrug off responsibility for the past pseudo-science of white superiority and enjoy the warm glow of Shaftesbury’s achievements in 1807 when the slave trade was abolished, we should remember that the gangrene of racist supremacy is still with us, as is the simple fact that, to steal a phrase, wealth cascades down the generations. Even after a couple of centuries. These two books have helped me to understand just a little bit more of why ‘Black Lives Matter’ matters. And it has not escaped my attention that I, a prosperous white middle-class liberal, have learned a little bit more not from George Floyd himself, who can no longer teach me, but from the perspectives of white protagonists, told by two white middle-class liberals, Lee and Unsworth. Who both won prizes. With no one kneeling on their necks. Are we really all in this together? It’s going to be a long road still. But read (or re-read) these two novels. We have to want to get better. It starts in our heads. SACRED HUNGER As a follow up I re-read Barry Unsworth’s David Misselbrook, Retired GP, Dean Emeritus of the Royal Society of Medicine, Past President FHPMP the Society of Apothecaries, Past Associate Professor of Family Medicine RCSI Medical University of Bahrain, and BJGP and BJGP Open Senior Ethics Advisor. “… if we will not address [the inequity of esteem within the Western psyche] in ourselves we could easily find ourselves kneeling on someone else’s neck — and we know that’s not always metaphorical.” Email: dmisselbrook@rcsi.com DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp20X712901 506 British Journal of General Practice, October 2020 Copyright of British Journal of General Practice is the property of Royal College of General Practitioners and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. TO OUTGROW A MOCKINGBIRD: CONFRONTING OUR HISTORY—AS WELL AS OUR FICTIONS—ABOUT INDIGENT DEFENSE IN THE DEEP SOUTH Sarah Gerwig-Moore To Kill a Mockingbird occupies a beloved space in law school classrooms and curricula, especially in its portrayal of Atticus Finch. Frequently held up as the model or “hero-lawyer,” Atticus’s character is powerful in fiction, but problematic in practice. His work is lauded, rather than scrutinized, despite his questionable ability to represent his client in life-or-death circumstances—specifically, a racially charged sexual assault case in the Deep South. Through considering examples of historical lawyers and texts which explore similar themes without the lens of fiction, those engaged in legal education and legal practice can and should look to others to study and emulate rather than continuing to promote the narrative that Atticus Finch is the very best of us.  Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law, Mercer University School of Law. I am deeply appreciative of the able research assistance provided by Kristen Cesario, Alex Mooring, and Macelyne Williams. 1297 1298 GEORGIA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 54:1297 Like many others who came up through the Georgia public school system,1 I was assigned to read To Kill a Mockingbird2 in the seventh grade. I thrilled at the eloquence of Gregory Peck’s courtroom monologue in the film adaptation.3 I hoped those in my class who were still “prejudiced” were listening up. The book and film made such an impression that when I graduated from law school and took a job as an appellate public defender, I named my Australian Shepherd puppy Scout and my next puppy, rescued a few years later, Atticus. This connection To Kill a Mockingbird places me squarely within the demographic of Americans generally, Southern Americans in particular, and White Southern American criminal defense lawyers in very, very particular—for whom this novel has been significant.4 It has been important to me when examining the pervasive racism of the world in which I live and now raise my children, and it has been important when considering all of the challenges facing my clients. It is also a simply magnificent novel. What I have come to reconsider—and what I now teach my students—is that the novel is not as important in shaping how law students think about questions of professional and ethical development, practical skills, and even the historical context in which they will practice. This may seem both sacrilegious and self-contradictory. Let me explain. For decades, Atticus Finch has been posited as a “hero lawyer” in law school courses,5 law review articles,6 continuing legal education 1 While literature curricula and text selections vary by county, To Kill a Mockingbird remains an exceptionally popular choice in English classes. Currently, it is listed as an exemplar text for grades 9–12 according to Common Core Standards. COMMON CORE STANDARDS FOR ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS & LITERACY IN HISTORY/SOCIAL STUDIES, SCIENCE, AND TECHNICAL SUBJECTS, APPENDIX B: TEXT EXEMPLARS AND SAMPLE PERFORMANCE TASKS 107 (2010), http://www.corestandards.org/assets/Appendix_B.pdf. 2 HARPER LEE, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (2002). 3 TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (Universal Pictures 1962) (starring actor Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch). 4 To Kill a Mockingbird has sold over forty million copies worldwide and has been translated into forty different languages. In 2016, more than fifty years after its publication, it was reported that the novel still sells 750,000 copies a year. Christina Austin, The Bittersweet Story Behind Harry Lee’s Success, FORTUNE (Feb. 19, 2016, 5:02 PM), https://fortune.com/2016/02/19/harper-lee-to-kill-a-mockingbird/. 5 Cynthia D. Bond, To Kill a Lawyer-Hero: Atticus Finch in the Law School Classroom, 45 RUTGERS L. REC. 191, 207 (2017). 6 See, e.g., Bill Haltom, Atticus Remains My Hero, 51 TENN. B.J. 34, 35 (2015); Atticus Finch: A Role Model, 2 HAW. B.J. 39, 39 (1998) (describing Atticus as a role model to the legal community). 2020] TO OUTGROW A MOCKINGBIRD 1299 programs,7 and even awards recognizing attorneys for their dedication to justice.8 But for a number of reasons, To Kill a Mockingbird is problematic as an instructional text for lawyers and law students. There are far better texts to help encourage the values of zealous advocacy and selfless devotion to a cause, and to highlight the truth of racial bias in the criminal courts, particularly those in the Deep South. Recognizing these limitations of a beloved novel may be difficult, but it is necessary.9 Like Scout, we must “grow up” to painful realizations, and we might just be mature enough to confront them. First—and this is odd to have to emphasize—Atticus Finch was a fictional character. It is true and fairly well-documented that Harper Lee based the character loosely on the life of her father, who was a lawyer. Her father, Amasa Coleman Lee, founded his own practice in Alabama with other partners and filled a variety of civic roles in his community, including serving as a state representative.10 Harper Lee’s sister followed in their father’s footsteps and became a prominent Alabama lawyer.11 Lee herself even studied law at the University of Alabama School of Law, although she withdrew from school just a few months before graduation.12 Instead of becoming a lawyer in Alabama, Lee moved to New York City to become a writer.13 It bears repeating at this point that Lee, despite imbuing her writing with her experiences from the legal world, never completed her own legal education, sat 7 See, e.g., Becoming Atticus Finch: Representing the Wrongfully Accused in Sexual Assault Cases, N.C. ADVOCS. FOR JUST., http://ncaj.fastcle.com/store/seminar/seminar.php?seminar=97860 (last visited Jan. 28, 2020); Representing the Unpopular Client Panel and Summation of Atticus Finch, ATLANTA BAR ASS’N, https://www.atlantabar.org/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=621835&group= (last visited Jan. 29, 2020). 8 See Atticus Finch Award, MO. ASS’N CRIM. DEF. LAW., http://macdl.net/AtticusFinchAward.aspx (last visited Jan. 30, 2020) (listing previous recipients of the award that were recognized for defending unpopular defendants or cases). 9 For a number of reasons, this Essay does not engage with Go Set a Watchman—a recently published draft of an earlier Harper Lee novel in which Atticus is an apologist for the Ku Klux Klan and a strong critic of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (the NAACP). See generally HARPER LEE, GO SET A WATCHMAN (2015). Plenty of interesting work has examined that novel—as well as the ethics of its publication—but the Atticus of To Kill a Mockingbird is the focus of the concerns discussed here. 10 Wayne Flynt, Nelle Harper Lee on Law, 69 ALA. L. REV. 629, 632 (2018). 11 See id. at 633–34 (discussing Alice Lee’s career as a successful Alabama tax attorney). 12 See id. at 631 (“Lee dropped out of law school in 1949[,] a year short of graduation . . . .”). 13 Id. 1300 GEORGIA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 54:1297 for the Bar, or practiced law—she was a layperson.14 And of course, Atticus Finch himself was neither alive nor an actual lawyer.15 Of course, laypeople frequently offer thoughtful insights into legal systems, and I do not mean to suggest that reading fiction has no benefit in students’ moral development or legal education. In my Law & Literature seminar, students read Martha Nussbaum and others on the need for law students to study the humanities to help build both empathy and understanding.16 We should not, however, confuse fictionalized history with our collective past, nor should we mistake its characters for an ideal lawyer. To Kill a Mockingbird is a coming-of-age novel—not a how-to manual for young lawyers—and to read it otherwise is perilous. Reading fiction as history creates a false narrative that white volunteer lawyers in the Deep South were broadly and zealously advocating for African American defendants in the 1930s.17 While local attorneys may have accepted the occasional unpopular pro bono case, it was certainly not the norm.18 Recall that the right to counsel was not guaranteed in death penalty cases until Powell v. Alabama19 in 1932 or in felony cases until Gideon v. Wainwright in 1963.20 Until relatively recently, it was not uncommon for defendants of color to face judges and juries alone.21 When lawyers were involved, they were far more likely to be cause lawyers from Northern legal organizations—most notably the NAACP Legal See id. See id. at 638 (describing “Atticus Finch as one of literature’s greatest, purest, [and] best” lawyers). 16 See Martha C. Nussbaum, Cultivating Humanity in Legal Education, 70 U. CHI. L. REV. 265, 271 (2003). 17 See, e.g., Soraya Nadia McDonald, ‘Just Mercy’ Shows that Atticus Finch Was Fiction, but Bryan Stevenson Is Real, UNDEFEATED (Jan. 10, 2020), https://theundefeated.com/features/just-mercy-shows-that-atticus-finch-was-fiction-butbryan-stevenson-is-real/. 18 Id. 19 287 U.S. 45, 71 (1932). 20 372 U.S. 335, 345 (1963). 21 See Indigent Criminal Defense Research Guide: The Law Before Gideon, GEO. L., https://guides.ll.georgetown.edu/c.php?g=363469&p=2455701 (last updated Mar. 27, 2018, 9:19 AM) (“For most of U.S. history, the vast majority of state criminal defendants did not have the right to a court-appointed attorney.”). The Equal Justice Initiative website is replete with facts about inequality in the legal system. A History of Racial Injustice, EJI, https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/jan/31 (last visited Jan. 31, 2020). 14 15 2020] TO OUTGROW A MOCKINGBIRD 1301 Defense Fund (LDF)22 or the International Labor Defense (ILD), the Chicago-based “legal arm” of the Communist Party.23 Certainly, Lee makes no claim about the regularity of local lawyers stepping up to accept unpopular court appointments,24 but there is a risk of becoming so starstruck with Atticus’s character that we forget the dire historical context in which the novel was set.25 Consider the Scottsboro case, for example, which took place not far from where To Kill a Mockingbird was set and about which Lee would surely have known.26 In that case, the defendants were capitally charged in the purported rape of two white women.27 The local judge “appointed all members of the local bar to represent them[,]” but no one stepped forward to do so in spite of the judge’s lackluster directive.28 The defendants—all young teenagers facing the death penalty—remained unrepresented until the ILD entered the case.29 ILD lawyers, primarily trained and based north of the Mason-Dixon line, were “actively involved in civil rights and anti-lynching activities, mindful of opportunities to help recruit Party supporters.”30 22 NAACP Legal History, NAACP, https://www.naacp.org/naacp-legal-team/naacp-legalhistory/ (last visited Jan. 31, 2020); History, LDF, https://www.naacpldf.org/about-us/history (last visited Jan. 31, 2020). 23 The International Labor Defense, PBS, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/scottsboro-international-labordefense/ (last visited Feb. 9, 2020). 24 LEE, supra note 2, at 186. 25 See Alabama, U.S. C.R. TRAIL, https://civilrightstrail.com/state/alabama/ (last visited Jan. 31, 2020) (describing racial injustice and the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama). 26 Scottsboro Boys, HIST., https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/scottsboro-boys (last updated Jan. 16, 2020). 27 Id. 28 JAMES R. ACKER, SCOTTSBORO AND ITS LEGACY: THE CASES THAT CHALLENGED THE AMERICAN LEGAL AND SOCIAL JUSTICE 6 (2008) (internal quotation marks omitted) (“The accused stood before Judge Hawkins, indigent and without legal representation. A day earlier, a Chattanooga lawyer, Stephen Roddy, who had been retained with offerings collected by a church group from that same city, had driven to Scottsboro with a promise to resist any efforts that might be made to railroad the youths. However, Roddy had already returned to Tennessee before the indictments were delivered and did not appear in court for the arraignment. Peering down at the nine young men who now stood charged with rape, Judge Hawkins appointed all members of the local bar to represent them for the limited purpose of arraigning the defendants. Seven lawyers comprised the local bar. None stepped forward in the ensuing days to act on the [defendants]’ behalf, and three were soon hired to assist the prosecution.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). 29 See id. (noting that the defendants did not have legal representation at the time of their arraignment). 30 Id. 1302 GEORGIA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 54:1297 Add to that the concern that Atticus exemplifies a problematic white savior trope.31 The figure of a local lawyer, embedded in the local culture but nevertheless rising to the occasion of representing an unpopular defendant, is not only problematic but unsupported by the legal history, which was driven by those historic social movements.32 In her thoughtful piece examining this trope, Cynthia Bond notes, “[To Kill a Mockingbird] focuses on the radical individual as hero, essentially invisibilizing social movements that existed both during the 1930s, when the novel takes place, and the 1960s, when it was published.”33 The presence in our world of actual hero-lawyers makes it especially curious that lawyers should select its icon from a novel. There are countless real-life lawyers who exemplify the values attributed to Atticus in To Kill a Mockingbird: devotion to principles of justice, willingness to accept worthy cases at the expense of his reputation or comfort, and concern for those otherwise unable to secure counsel. What is it that leads us to seek our heroes in fiction when figures like Ruth Bader Ginsburg,34 Abraham Lincoln,35 and Arabella Mansfield36 have graced our nation’s courtrooms? To be 31 See, e.g., Osamudia R. James, Now We Can Finally Say Goodbye to the White Savior Myth of Atticus, N.Y. TIMES (July 15, 2015, 11:31 AM), https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/07/15/how-should-schools-deal-with-the-newatticus-finch/now-we-can-finally-say-goodbye-to-the-white-savior-myth-of-atticus (discussing the misplaced regard in which the legal academy holds Atticus Finch). 32 Id. 33 Bond, supra note 5, at 198. 34 Ruth Bader Ginsburg, an Associate Justice for the U.S. Supreme Court, is only the second woman to serve on the Court. Throughout her career, she has been an advocate for women’s rights and has contributed largely to the issue of gender discrimination. Elizabeth E. Gillman & Joseph M. Micheletti, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 3 SETON HALL CONST. L.J. 657, 657, 659 (1993). In recent years, she has taken on a significant position in contemporary culture, as demonstrated by recent tributes to her legacy, as well as the moniker, “Notorious RBG.” See generally Gillian H. Clow, Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 41 L.A. LAW. 32 (2019). 35 Abraham Lincoln is well-known as the sixteenth President of the United States, but prior to taking office, he was a self-taught attorney. Talmage Boston, The Ultimate Role Model: What Lawyers Can Learn from Lincoln, 72 TEX. B.J. 106, 107–08 (2009). He spent most of his time handling bankruptcies after the new Bankruptcy Act went into effect in 1842. Joel M. Aresty, President Abraham Lincoln: Bankruptcy Lawyer, 34 AM. BANKR. INST. J. 44, 44–46 (2015). Then in 1846, Lincoln was elected to the U.S. Congress, and at the end of his appointment, he returned to his law practice. Id. His earnest professionalism throughout his life earned him the ever-persistent nickname, “Honest Abe.” Id. at 44. 36 Arabella Mansfield was America’s first female lawyer. She was admitted to the Iowa bar in 1869 when the bar was restricted to white men aged twenty-one and older. Marlene Coir, Women in the Law—A History of Endurance, 95 MICH. B.J. 40, 40 (2016). After she challenged the court for admission, Iowa became the first state to accept women and 2020] TO OUTGROW A MOCKINGBIRD 1303 fair, a number of programs (and courses) do just this,37 but we cannot ignore an Atticus-fixation even amongst the decades of heroes (and heroines) who have helped make the world safer and more just for the powerless and voiceless. At the top of every list of non-fiction hero lawyer should be Justice Thurgood Marshall, who was not only the first African American Justice to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court,38 but also spent the early decades of his career in small town courtrooms standing between his clients and manifest injustice (and frequently, a death sentence).39 There are a number of reasons to read about Justice Marshall’s work, but among them is the point that several of his cases are remarkably similar to the prosecution described in To Kill a Mockingbird. If professors and mentors believe it is important for law students to read about innocent African American defendants charged with rape by an unjust system and wholly victimized despite an utter lack of physical evidence of any crime (much less that they were the perpetrators), let them look no further than Gilbert King’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Devil in the Grove.40 Devil in the Grove tells the story of Shepherd v. Florida.41 In that case, Thomas Charles Greenlee (who was sixteen years old at the time), Samuel Shepherd, and Walter Irvin—collectively known as the Groveland defendants—were charged with the rape of Norma Rae Padgett (whose medical examination revealed no evidence of a minorities to the bar. Id. She never practiced law, opting for a career in academia instead. Id. She maintained a lifelong support for equal rights for women. 37 See Irin Carmon, Author of “Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” YALE L. SCH., https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/yale-law-school-events/irin-carmonauthor-notorious-rbg-life-and-times-ruth-bader-ginsburg (last visited Jan. 31, 2020) (inviting members of the Yale Law community to listen to Irin Carmon discuss her newly released book on Ruth Bader Ginsburg); see also The Notorious RBG, RUTGERS, https://www.sashonors.rutgers.edu/academics/curriculum/interdisciplinary-seminars/3608the-notorious-rbg (last visited Jan. 31, 2020) (describing a course that focuses on the life and cases of Justice Ginsburg). 38 In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson appointed Thurgood Marshall to the U.S. Supreme Court. Thurgood Marshall 1940–1961, LDF, https://www.naacpldf.org/aboutus/history/thurgood-marshall (last visited Jan. 31, 2020) [hereinafter Thurgood Marshall]. 39 A letter Justice Marshall wrote to the NAACP during the Lyons v. Oklahoma trial captures the common milieu: “Jury is lousy. State investigator and County prosecutor busy around town stirring up prejudice, etc. No chance of winning here. Will keep record straight for appeal.” Anna Hemingway et al., Thurgood Marshall: The Writer, 47 WILLAMETTE L. REV. 211, 218 (2011). 40 See generally GILBERT KING, DEVIL IN THE GROVE (2012). 41 341 U.S. 50 (1951). 1304 GEORGIA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 54:1297 sexual assault) in Lake County, Florida.42 Devil in the Grove is an extraordinary book (and extraordinarily difficult to read), covering not only the bizarre and terrible history of the Groveland case but also other cases Justice Marshall worked on during his time with the LDF.43 It chronicles an era of racial terror—including times when Justice Marshall and his colleagues were nearly lynched themselves44—and details the many challenges of representing capital defendants in the South, including trying to locate and persuade local counsel to join the cases.45 King spent four years researching the book,46 during which he was granted exclusive access to the LDF’s files, which included a history of the Groveland case, among others.47 Some of the primary sources consulted in the preparation for the book include “unredacted FBI files, the LDF files, and even audio recordings of the defendants’ illegal interrogations.48 Another work of nonfiction that offers readers a hero lawyer with qualities often attributed to Atticus Finch is Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy49 (now also a well-received film).50 Just Mercy, like Devil in the Grove, weaves together a number of stories of infuriating injustice (along with the interplay of race and class) but focuses on more recent cases. For example, Walter McMillian, a primary figure in the text, was wrongfully convicted of murder and spent six years on Alabama’s death row until his eventual exoneration.51 Unlike Devil in the Grove, the stories are told by the lawyer who was the primary advocate in those cases. Far from holding himself out as a 42 “If I were asked if the woman was raped, I would have to answer, ‘I don’t know.’” See KING, supra note 40, at 150–52; see also Groveland, PBS, https://www.pbs.org/harrymoore/terror/groveland.html (last visited Feb. 17, 2020). 43 At one point, he oversaw as many as 450 simultaneous cases. Thurgood Marshall, supra note 38. 44 Justice Marshall usually navigated through the south alone, despite the number of death threats he received daily. KING, supra note 40, at 4; see also JUAN WILLIAMS, THURGOOD MARSHALL: AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY 138–41 (1998) (describing a time when Justice Marshall, after winning twenty-three acquittals for twenty-five defendants, was almost a victim of assassination by a local officer). 45 KING, supra note 40, at 143. 46 Labarre Blackman, “Devil in the Grove”: Must-Read Pulitzer Prize Winner, PEOPLE’S WORLD (May 30, 2013, 2:12 PM), https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/devil-in-the-grovemust-read-pulitzer-prize-winner/. 47 See KING, supra note 40, at 367 (noting sources used by the author). 48 See id. (mentioning some of the key sources used by the author). 49 BRYAN STEVENSON, JUST MERCY (2014). 50 See Just Mercy, PARTICIPANT, https://participant.com/film/just-mercy (last visited Feb. 3, 2020) (providing a trailer and a synopsis of the film). 51 See STEVENSON, supra note 49, at 220. 2020] TO OUTGROW A MOCKINGBIRD 1305 hero lawyer, Stevenson is exceptionally humble in describing his work and role in his client’s successes. Just Mercy also offers commentary and background on systemic and cultural barriers to fair trials for indigent defendants, and Stevenson and the staff of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) have dedicated a large part of their work to educating the public on these barriers. Over a half-century after the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird, readers of Just Mercy note the irony of Alabama court staff proudly inviting Stevenson to visit the “Mockingbird Museum” as he labors to represent his client:52 “Have you read the book? It’s a wonderful story. This is a famous place. They made the old courthouse a museum, and when they made the movie Gregory Peck came here. You should go over there and stand where Mr. Peck stood—I mean, where Atticus stood.” . . . She continued talking enthusiastically about the story until I promised to visit the museum as soon as I could. I refrained from explaining that I was too busy working on the case of an innocent black man the community was trying to execute after a racially biased prosecution.53 As the work of EJI urges, more honestly facing our history will help us face modern challenges more successfully.54 The American South does not have a proud history of pro bono lawyers standing in the gap for vulnerable criminal defendants, and nationally, public defender offices struggle to meet the needs of their clients.55 Id. at 108–09. Id. 54 EQUAL JUST. INITIATIVE, https://eji.org (last visited Jan. 31, 2020). 55 See generally Stephen B. Bright & Sia M. Sanneh, Fifty Years of Defiance and Resistance After Gideon v. Wainwright, 122 YALE L.J. 2150 (2013) (arguing that poor people fare worse in the criminal justice system due to inadequate funding for indigent defense); see also Bennett H. Brummer, The Banality of Excessive Defender Workload: Managing the Systemic Obstruction of Justice, 22 ST. THOMAS L. REV. 104, 106 (2009) (noting the impact of public defenders’ excessive caseload on the criminal justice system); Lisa C. Wood, Daniel T. Goyette & Geoffrey T. Burkhart, Meet-and-Plead: The Inevitable Consequence of Crushing Defender Workloads, 42 LITIG. 20, 21 (2016). 52 53 1306 GEORGIA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 54:1297 Admirers of Atticus have noted how courageous it is that he accepted Tom Robinson’s case even though the representation would be a challenge.56 Surely, this is true; heroic lawyers do not shy from difficult cases. But more than that, Cynthia L. Fountaine writes: Indeed, [Atticus] had no hope of winning and he knew that the only publicity he would receive would be negative. . . . He acted courageously in order to bring out the truth because he had compassionate respect for Tom Robinson and his family and because he valued the principle of equal justice under the law.57 Two points about this. Unlike Thurgood Marshall and other LDF lawyers, Atticus, though at risk of social ostracism, was never at risk of physical harm, and likely not at risk of financial harm.58 Second, this sentiment reflects an unfortunate lack of understanding about the need for specialized training and expertise in criminal defense representation.59 Although the chances of this case in a small, southern town during the Great Depression were thoroughly grim, they may have been brighter had the attorney tried more than one criminal case (after which the defendants were hanged) in his expansive career.60 All of Atticus’s moral, yet notably detached, motivations for fulfilling his appointment do nothing to bridge this gap in experience. Through a number of creative, research-based de-incarceration and criminal justice reform initiatives, advocates are trying to address the problems created by inexperienced lawyers and substandard legal representation generally. Notable among these initiatives is Gideon’s Promise, a public defender training and mentorship program, which specifically seeks to ensure that 56 Cynthia L. Fountaine, In the Shadow of Atticus Finch: Constructing a Heroic Lawyer, 13 WIDENER L.J. 123, 135 (2003). 57 Id. at 133. 58 See supra note 31 and accompanying text. 59 See, e.g., Stephen B. Bright, Counsel for the Poor: The Death Penalty Not for the Worst Crime but for the Worst Lawyer, 103 YALE L.J. 1835 (1994). 60 See LEE, supra note 2, at 5 (“His first two clients were the last two persons hanged in the Maycomb County jail.”). Atticus himself doubted his ability to make a difference in the outcome of the case. See Thomas L. Shaffer, The Moral Theology of Atticus Finch, 42 U. PITT. L. REV. 181, 185 (1981) (“Atticus’s statements before the Robinson trial indicate that he has little hope of success in the case, although, after the verdict, he indicated that he hoped for success on appeal.”). 2020] TO OUTGROW A MOCKINGBIRD 1307 indigent clients relying on public defenders receive the same competency in representation that paying clients would expect from their lawyers in other circumstances.61 Gideon’s Promise attorneys represent 200,000 individuals per year, but have training for and support in their work.62 Its attorneys are more likely to secure pretrial diversions for their clients, while having lower rates of plea deals, and having fewer clients incarcerated as compared to traditional public defenders who receive less extensive and focused training.63 Yet even amidst progress in the creation of public defender offices, internal and external challenges threaten effective representation for criminal defendants. Georgia’s statewide public defender system, for example, was created in 2003 to oversee indigent defense in the state and initially promulgated performance standards for both public defenders and contract defenders accepting case appointments.64 Since that time, however, the agency has removed performance standards from its website and even changed its name from the “Georgia Public Defender Standards Council” to the “Georgia Public Defender Council.”65 These changes do not mean that its attorneys have eschewed recommended best practices for criminal defense representation, but it does represent the manifold conflicts and compromises around funding challenges and appropriate staffing and caseloads. And while it is impossible to know the final budget that will pass in the Georgia General Assembly at the time of this writing, Governor Kemp’s proposed budget involves a $3.5 million cut from the public defender budget for the upcoming year.66 Advocates have claimed such a budget cut would significantly limit indigent defense services, which already receive less funding than prosecutors’ offices.67 61 Impact, GIDEON’S PROMISE, https://www.gideonspromise.org/impact/ (last visited Feb. 4, 2020). 62 Id. 63 Id. 64 H.B. 770, 147th Gen. Assemb., Reg. Sess. (Ga. 2003). 65 GA. PUB. DEF. COUNCIL, www.gapubdef.org (last visited Feb. 4, 2020); see also H.B. 422, 153d Gen. Assemb., Reg. Sess. (Ga. 2015) (enacting the name change). 66 Greg Bluestein & Maya T. Prabhu, Kemp Pursues a New Criminal Justice Policy, Unnerving Critics, ATLANTA J. CONST. (Jan. 22, 2020), https://www.ajc.com/news/state-regional-govt--politics/kemp-pursues-new-criminal-justice-policy-unnervingcritics/kjbvlgLsPWnDE2RrWROM5L/. 67 Within the same budget proposal which reduced the public defender budget by $3.5 million, Governor Kemp proposed additions totaling over $3 million to the District Attorney’s 1308 GEORGIA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 54:1297 The hero-worship of To Kill a Mockingbird may contribute to (or reflect) distractions from the persistent inequities facing criminal defendants even in the modern age. Our admiration for the book (and the film) has become a proxy for disapproving of the racism they portray—without requiring readers to interrogate present concerns around provision of counsel, prosecutorial and judicial misconduct, jury selection (and bias), and other structures that stand between criminal defendants and a fair trial. It would be unfair to lay blame for lack of funding for indigent defense at the feet of hero-worship of Atticus Finch, but a legal culture raised to lionize a volunteer lawyer who did not believe it important to uproot a flawed system is not a culture that fully funds public defender offices. Why would we, if goodhearted pro bono lawyers can handle the cases just as well as those who do the work every day? Atticus, of course, either is or pretends to be blind to these concerns. To him, justice is not only achievable but a “living, working reality.”68 Atticus’s iconic closing argument may have simply been a disingenuous exercise in guilting the jury into truly deliberating the charges against Tom Robinson. Except he tells us that this is what he truly believes: But there is one way in this country which all men are created equal—there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court. It can be the Supreme Court of the United States or the humblest J.P. court in the land, or this honorable court which you serve. Our courts 2021 budget. See GOVERNOR’S BUDGET REPORT: AMENDED FISCAL YEAR 2020 AND FISCAL YEAR 2021, at 65 (2020). Over the years, there have been several reports published which illustrate the significant history of disparity between the funds and compensation provided to public defenders as opposed to prosecutors in Georgia. See, e.g., JUDICIAL, DIST. ATT’Y, & CIRCUIT PUB. DEF. COMP. COMM’N, REPORT 15 (2016) (finding that the state pays district attorneys an annual salary of $120,072 and pays public defenders an annual salary of $99,526); NAT’L RIGHT TO COUNSEL COMM., JUSTICE DENIED: AMERICA’S CONTINUING NEGLECT OF OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO COUNSEL 64 (2009) (describing the inadequacy of compensation of assigned counsel); SPANGENBERG GRP., STATUS OF INDIGENT DEFENSE IN GEORGIA: A STUDY FOR THE CHIEF JUSTICE’S COMMISSION ON INDIGENT DEFENSE, PART I 96 (2003) (noting that the low compensation associated with indigent defense work creates a disincentive for defense attorneys to provide “the same level of work on appointed cases as they would in retained cases”). 68 LEE, supra note 2, at 233. 2020] TO OUTGROW A MOCKINGBIRD 1309 have their faults, as does any human institution, but in this country our courts are the great levelers, and in our courts all men are created equal. I’m no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and in the jury system—that is no ideal to me, it is a living, working reality. Gentlemen, a court is no better than each man of you sitting before me on this jury. A court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up. I am confident that you gentlemen will review without passion the evidence you have heard, come to a decision, and restore this defendant to his family. In the name of God, do your duty.69 Case illustrations described in Devil in the Grove and contemporary appellate opinions belie that courts were the great anythings for defendants of color.70 At the time this fictional speech echoed through its segregated courtroom, Plessy v. Ferguson was still the law of the land, empowering a “separate but equal” approach to public facilities—and public schools.71 Nine African American teenagers were sentenced to death in a nearby Alabama county without having had the benefit of counsel.72 In the mid-1940s (after To Kill a Mockingbird was set but before it was written), George Stinney, Jr., a fourteen-year-old child, was wrongfully convicted of murder in South Carolina and sentenced to death in the electric chair.73 There is not a transcript of his brief trial, and Stinney was so small that his executioner used a Bible as a booster Id. And of course, the fact that women and people of color were excluded from the jury to whom Atticus makes his passionate plea underscores the concerns about the “soundness” of the jury, its deliberations, and its verdict. See supra notes 40–41 and accompanying text (discussing King’s Devil in the Grove and a U.S. Supreme Court opinion in which the Court found that the racially discriminatory jury selection warranted reversal). 71 163 U.S. 537, 556–57 (1896) (holding that racially segregated public accommodations do not violate the Equal Protection Clause if they are “separate but equal”). 72 See Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 49–53 (1932) (holding that criminal defendants have the right to counsel in capital cases). 73 Lindsey Bever, It Took 10 Minutes to Convict 14-Year-Old George Stinney Jr. It Took 70 Years After His Execution to Exonerate Him, WASH. POST (Dec. 18, 2014, 5:24 AM), https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/12/18/the-rush-job-convictionof-14-year-old-george-stinney-exonerated-70-years-after-execution/. 69 70 1310 GEORGIA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 54:1297 so that he would fit in the seat.74 Stinney, like the Groveland defendants,75 received a posthumous pardon76—cold comfort indeed for such atrocities. Courtrooms may have been preferable to the racial terror that awaited in town squares—but in light of this history, only just barely. Atticus’s views are eloquent, but with all respect due to him, he is an idealist and either purposefully naïve to the challenges facing his client or willfully ignorant of them. And finally, Atticus was not even successful.77 It seems unsportsmanlike to criticize a fictional lawyer for not winning Tom Robinson’s case—of course, plenty of real-life heroes regularly lose cases to which they gave their heart and talent—but it serves us well to remember the fate of Atticus’s client.78 In Atticus, we see no exemplars of brilliant interlocutory appeals, motions for a change of venue, summoning of expert witnesses, or even demonstrative evidence (beyond throwing a cup to his client). We do not need to evaluate his lawyering skills by the outcome of the case, because readers do not see much actual lawyering (attorneys and law students know, of course, that the behind-the-scenes research, writing, and investigation work is the heart of what we do). Whether we judge Atticus by his advocacy, his idealistic view of the legal system, the outcome of his client’s case, or the chasm between fiction and reality of social justice lawyering in the American South, the novel is left wanting as model for lawyers and law students. It is still one of my favorite-ever books, but I have to be careful not to attribute more meaning than was intended by its author. Atticus is still a fascinating character—as are his children— and the novel still addresses themes of racism and injustice in 74 Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith, George Stinney Jr: Black 14-year-old Boy Exonerated 70 Years After He Was Executed, INDEPENDENT (Dec. 18, 2014, 10:23 AM), https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/george-stinney-jr-black-14-year-oldboy-exonerated-70-years-after-he-was-executed-9932429.html. 75 See Jacey Fortin, Florida Pardons the Groveland Four, 70 Years After Jim Crow-Era Rape Case, N.Y. TIMES (Jan. 11, 2019), https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/us/grovelandfour-pardon-desantis.html (reporting the pardons of the Groveland Four). 76 See Eleftheriou-Smith, supra note 74 (“[M]ore than 70 years after [Stinney’s] death[,] his conviction has been overturned.”). 77 LEE, supra note 2, at 240. 78 See STEVENSON, supra note 49, at 23 (“Today, dozens of legal organizations hand out awards in the fictional lawyer’s name to celebrate the model of advocacy described in Lee’s novel. What is often overlooked is that the black man falsely accused in the story was not successfully defended by Atticus. Tom Robinson, the wrongly accused black defendant, is found guilty.”). 2020] TO OUTGROW A MOCKINGBIRD 1311 powerful and important ways. But it is also a product of its time, and for all its brilliance, deeply limited. The truth is that readers who view To Kill a Mockingbird as the apex of heroic lawyering are all too often six-year-old Jean Louise Finch in our idolatry of Atticus. We desperately cling to a naïve view of history, but our heroes have clay feet mired in a racist culture; our beloved institutions were dangerous and exclusionary; and our iconic books tell only a piece of a larger and more complicated narrative. And when we grow up and see how the world truly was, and still is today, we don’t know how to think or feel about it. It is Scout’s loss of innocence and it is ours. And it is good for us. Our idols–even the Pulitzer-Prize-winning ones—are smashed. And we have to decide whether to glue the pieces back together or to fashion a new mosaic with what is real: a troubled history and an opportunity to learn from our past. Copyright of Georgia Law Review is the property of Georgia Law Review and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. Copyright of Georgia Law Review is the property of Georgia Law Review and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. ISSN 1799-2591 Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 6, No. 12, pp. 2292-2296, December 2016 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0612.08 Negro’s “Double Consciousness” in To Kill a Mockingbird Faeze Rezazade Department of English Literature, Faculty of Humanities, Vali-e-Asr University, Rafsanjan, Kerman, Iran Esmaeil Zohdi Department of English Literature, Faculty of Humanities, Vali-e-Asr University, Rafsanjan, Kerman, Iran Sohila Faghfori Department of English Literature, Faculty of Humanities, Vali-e-Asr University, Rafsanjan, Kerman, Iran Abstract—Living among the Whites has caused many problems for the Blacks throughout the history. African Americans, who are African in their roots and American in their life, as opposite races, are segregated from the White’s societies due to their colored skin. They are considered as uncivilized and lowbrow people who do not have equal rights to the Whites. Thus, racial segregation acting like a veil, as Du Bois refers to, brings African Americans a dual identity which leads to their double consciousness. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, written in 1960, further to its depiction of racial prejudice and discrimination issues of American society in 1930’s, pictures the life of a minor character named Calpurnia as a black woman who lives with a white family and has the role of a mother for the white children. Therefore, living among the Whites and the Blacks at the same time leads her to a double consciousness, which is the result of segregation. Thus, using W. E. B. Du Bois’ concepts of “veil” and “double consciousness”, in this study it has been tried to investigate the inner as well as the outer truth of African Americans’ life and their merged identity under the impact of racism. Index Terms— double consciousness, Du Bois, identity, segregation, To Kill a Mockingbird I. INTRODUCTION Racism as an issue has been a matter of fact among the human societies since the end of the 19th century. Black people were predetermined throughout the history by the racist societies due to their skin color. They are considered as the inferior creatures who are socially, politically, and culturally deprived of their rights as human beings. Likewise, Prejudice, injustice, fanaticism, and discrimination have always existed throughout the history so that many innocent individuals were the victims of these concepts. Cultural, gender, and racial stereotypes are indeed the causes of such immoral acts. People living in a society are most of the time under the pressure of being judged by others whether truly or false. In this case, people of opposite races, females, and low-class members are mostly under the attention. Therefore, Cultural, social, and racial superiority has been a kind of instrument to oppress the inferiors. These inferior people, especially people in colored skins, then, are the subjects of prejudice and injustice. Thus, their rights as humanbeings are ignored, their services and efforts are unnoticed and they are most of the time treated unfairly. They are segregated from the Whites’ societies and are treated as slaves because they are seen as savages and lowbrow people in the eyes of the Whites regardless of their righteousness and humanity. African Americans are the main victims of segregation who are facing with the problem of double consciousness due to their dual life and merged identity because of being both African and American. Accordingly, prejudice and injustice toward innocent members of a society, especially Blacks, has been the main concerns of many writers and has prompted them to write for their rights. Unfortunately, despite the enormous struggle of black and white writers, the inequality rights of individuals based on their social, cultural, gender, and racial differences is still alive. These individuals, who are at most of the time from the low-classes of the society, are in the eyes of the others as the subjects of any criminals done in their surroundings, regardless of their innocence. Whereas writing and literature is a good weapon in eliminating wrong believes and behaviors toward such blameless individuals, teaching moral lessons and developing ethical codes in societies to prevent people from judging their fellowmen is the purpose of Nelle Harper Lee by writing To Kill a Mockingbird. Nelle Harper Lee, a white novelist, is the one who wrote To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) to express her point of view toward racial and cultural prejudice throughout moral codes of behavior. She also has defended the rights of black people as humans in her second novel Go Set a Watchman (2015). Harper Lee in her two novels, To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman, attempted to demonstrate how people of different race, culture, and class should be responsible to respect each other and coexist in the world regardless of their differences. She, in the heart of her To Kill a Mockingbird, depicts the life of a Black woman, Calpurnia, who can be considered as a victim of segregation with a dual life. Calpurnia, who is the maid of a white family, lives a dual life as © 2016 ACADEMY PUBLICATION THEORY AND PRACTICE IN LANGUAGE STUDIES 2293 being both African and American. She lives among the Blacks and the Whites at the same time and this oscillation brings her a sense of double consciousness which can be seen in her language and behavior, a double consciousness which is the result of segregation of the Negroes from the Whites’ society. In To Kill a Mockingbird, which has been recognized as the second moral book after Bible in America and has a widespread popularity around the world, Du Bois’ concepts of “veil” and “double consciousness” can be seen obviously. W. E. B. Du Bois, who is himself a Black, in his The Souls of Black Folks, fights against racism and introduces the concept of “veil” which functions like a wall and segregates the Blacks from the Whites. In Du Bois’ words this veil, which is made by the Whites, brings a sense of double consciousness for the African Americans which finally leads them to a merged identity. Observing Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, this study will focus on the dual life and merged identity of Calpurnia, as a Negro woman in the story, based on Du Bois’ concepts of “veil”, as the wall of segregation, and “double consciousness”. II. DISCUSSION Racism has existed among the groups of people since the very beginning of the people’s communication and therefore can be considered as the part of human nature. W. E. B. Du Bois in “Of the Training of the Black Men” points to the Whites’ belief that God has created the Negroes as simple and “clownish” creatures to serve them. Therefore, Whites know themselves as the master race and superior to the Blacks. They treat the Blacks as inferior people and segregate them from their own society so that the Blacks are kept behind the wall of segregation, social injustice and oppression. Lois Tyson in his Critical Theory Today says, “Racism refers to the unequal power relations that grow from the sociopolitical domination of one race by another and that result in systematic discriminatory practices (for example, segregation, domination, and persecution)” (2006, p. 360). Likewise, racism makes it more difficult for black men to earn a living or spend their earnings as they will; it gives them poorer school facilities and restricted contact with cultured classes; and it becomes, throughout the land, a cause and excuse for discontent, lawlessness, laziness, and injustice (qtd in Katz and Sugrue, 2001, p. 205). Consequently, Blacks are deprived of their rights in the Whites’ societies and are separated physically and psychologically just because of their colored skin, which is the sign of their inferiority in the eyes of white people. In fact, the Whites believe that “human races were not just different from one another, but that some were superior to others” (Moore, 2008, p. XI) and therefore can dominate the inferiors. W. E. B. Du Bois, a sociologist and Pan-Africanist, from the late 19th century until his death devoted his life to refuting the superiority of one race over the other. Du Bois himself was a victim of prejudice because of his black skin, thus he endeavored all along his life to fight against racism and demanded equal civil rights for African Americans. He was such a prominent figure in the discussion of racism that his work, The Souls of Black Folk, has gained the position of the political Bible for the Negro race. And all creative Afro-American literature has been inspired by it in some degrees (Edwards, 2007, p. Vii). Du Bois in his collection of essays, The Souls of Black Folk, which is a seminal work in African American literature, speaks about his perspectives on the effects of racism and addresses the problem of institutionalized racism as a veil which has segregated the Blacks from the Whites like a wall and has prevented the human nature of the Blacks to be seen by the Whites. Furthermore, Du Bois argues that the veil brings African Americans a dual identity which leads to their double consciousness. A. Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird in 1960 but set it in the 1930s, the time of the Great Depression, to remind the readers of the socioeconomic hardship of those era and also the historic Scottsboro Trial, which Lee has fictionalized it in the story through the character of Tom Robinson who is an innocent Negro accused of raping a white girl. She wrote this novel on the purpose of showing the immoral aspects of cultural, social, racial, and gender discriminations and indeed tried to invite people to coexist with one another despite any differences among them without prejudice and injustice. On the year which Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, it was immediately successful and won the Pulitzer Prize, it has become a classic of modern American Literature and still is a successful and readable novel for 55 years after its publication. This novel also was adapted into an Oscar winning movie in 1962. Further to its depiction of racial prejudice and discrimination issues of American society in 1930’s, To Kill a Mockingbird pictures the life of a minor character named Calpurnia as a black woman who lives with a white family and has the role of a mother for the white children. Therefore, living among the Whites and the Blacks at the same time leads her to a double consciousness, which is the result of segregation. Thus, in this study, it has been tried to scrutinize the inner as well as the outer truth of African Americans’ life and their merged identity under the impact of racism based on Du Bois’ concepts of “veil” and “double consciousness”. B. Du Bois’ Concepts of “Veil” and “Double Consciousness” Du Bois in his The Souls of Black Folk, written in 1903, introduces the symbolic concept of “veil” and states that the Blacks are shut out from the Whites’ world by a vast veil. He believes that racial discrimination is like a veil which has separated whites and blacks so that they cannot integrate to one another even when they are living in one country. In Du Bois’ view this “veil” is interwoven thread by thread by the white world under the impact of racism and is imposed on © 2016 ACADEMY PUBLICATION 2294 THEORY AND PRACTICE IN LANGUAGE STUDIES the Blacks. As its basic definition, veil is a piece of clothes that covers the face especially of a woman to protect or hide (Oxford Advanced Learner’s dictionary, 2005). Therefore, in Du Bois’ words, as its function, the veil conceals the abilities and humanity of the Blacks and only gives a faint and distorted image of the Blacks. Likewise, in Charles F. Peterson’s words, Du Bois’ concept of “veil” has become “the signifier, metaphor, symbol for the barrier and its resulting level and layer of tension, difference, ignorance, and prejudice that demarcate Afro-us society from mainstream American society" (2007, p. 14). However, Du Bois does not have a negative attitude toward this veil and even refers to it as a “second sight” which reveals the racist face of the Whites, but he also persuades African Americans to tear it down and show their good nature and real humanity to the world. Du Bois states, After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world, --a world which yields him no true selfconsciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness,--an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder (2007a, p. 8). Indeed, this metaphoric veil, as the consequence of segregation and racial discrimination, brings African Americans a double consciousness. African Americans are faced up to a great psychological challenge which is the lack of a true self-consciousness, due to their merged identity as being both African and American, inner and outer of the veil. They are viewed by the Whites as inferior and nonhuman and only themselves can see the trueness of their identity and race under the threads of the veil. In the other words, as Robert Gooding-Williams says, Blacks are seeing themselves from the perspectives of the Whites which is a “false self-consciousness that obtains among African Americans when they observe and judge themselves from the perspective of a white, Jim Crow American world that betrays the ideal of reciprocal recognition due to a contemptuous, falsifying prejudice that inaccurately represents Negro life” (2009, p. 80). Thus, being in such an in-between position, living among the Africans and Americans at the same time, and facing a merged identity is the case that Du Bois refers to it as “double consciousness”. In this regard, African Americans are asked by their defenders to struggle against discrimination to obtain a true self-consciousness. As Du Bois stipulates, The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,--this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face (2007a, p. 9). Accordingly, in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, double consciousness can be seen through the character of Calpurnia, a Negro woman, as the result of her interactions with both Blacks and white people, under the impact of Black’s segregation from the Whites’ society and putting them behind a vast veil. C. Negroes’ Double Consciousness in “To Kill a Mockingbird” To Kill a Mockingbird is the story of racial discrimination, injustice, lynching, and prejudice which is set during 1930s, the time of Great Depression in America. It happens in the state of Alabama in a fictional town named Maycomb, where its people are racist, selfish, and fanatic. To Kill a Mockingbird as a bildungsroman is narrated by a little girl named Scott Finch who lives with her father and brother, Atticus and Jim, and also their black maid Calpurnia. The story revolves around Tom Robinson’s trial, as a Negro accused of raping a white girl, and Atticus’ courage as a person who has undertook Tom’s advocacy in such a racist society. Lee’s depiction of the contacts of two races in the novel proves Du Bois statement that despite daily intermingling of the Whites and the Blacks “there is almost no community of intellectual life or point of transference where the thoughts and feelings of one race can come into direct contact and sympathy with the thoughts and feelings of the other" (2007a, p. 123). In contrast to Maycomb’s racist people, all the people of both races, Whites and Blacks, are equal for Atticus and he tries to be friend with both of these two groups. Thus, Calpurnia lives in their house and has the role of a mother for Atticus’ children. Calpurnia, who is a Negro, trains the children kindly or even fight with them when they do something wrong. Indeed, there is no difference between her and a white mother in Finch’ house and she is treated as equal as a White person in there. On the other hand, she is a Negro who has a house among the Blacks which she goes to after doing her job in Finch’s house. In fact, she is a Black woman who lives both in White’s and Black’s society and this oscillation brings her a double consciousness. Calpurnia is a Negro and Negroes are segregated from the Maycomb’s white society. They are settled in a place near the town garbage dump, out of the town. As Leonard Dinnerstein notes, throughout the history in racist societies “the worst housing in the cities was reserved for the black migrants coming from the South” (qtd. in M’Baye, 2009, p. 173). Indeed, these Blacks are living behind a vast “veil” which separates them from the Whites’ gatherings and conceals the Black’s humanity and good nature from the others. Negroes in To Kill a Mockingbird are like mockingbirds which “don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us” (Lee, 2010, p. 103). Negroes in the story do the Whites’ works and even are kind to all the people but are segregated and treated badly by the Whites, they are considered as the culprits in the case of any misdeed regardless of their righteousness and innocence. When a mad dog was appeared in the street, © 2016 ACADEMY PUBLICATION THEORY AND PRACTICE IN LANGUAGE STUDIES 2295 Calpurnia called all the neighbors and made them aware of the danger, even she went in front of Radleys’ door and banged on the door to aware them too (Lee, 2010, p. 107). Although she knew that Radleys will never come out, she saw it as a duty to aware them. Likewise, in Tom Robinson’s trial, tom is accused of raping a white girl just because he wanted to help a lonely girl in her house deeds. He is lynched regardless of his innocence because he is a Negro and the girl is a White and Whites go on “the assumption- the evil assumption- that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women” (Lee, 2010, p. 233). Thus, the Negroes are the subjects of prejudice in the story and are kept behind the veil of segregation. Pursuant to the above information, as Wilson J. Moses stipulates in his essay, The Poetics of Ethiopianism: W.E.B. Dubois and Literary Black Nationalism, the veil is “often symbolic of black skin” (2001, P. 66) which differentiates the Blacks physically from the Whites. In fact, the veil makes the good nature of the Blacks invisible to the Whites so that they become the subject of any criminals in Whites’ society, like Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird. And finally the veil gives a sense of double consciousness to the Blacks which leads to their merged identity. Accordingly, Living behind the veil, among the Negroes themselves, gives them their own real identity, but this identity is not accepted to the Whites’ world because the Whites only see the ugly and distorted image of the Blacks due to the veil. Thus, the Blacks’ goal is to tear down the veil and show their true identity to the Whites’ world. Calpurnia’s double consciousness can be seen obviously in chapter twelve when she decides to take Finch’s children to the Black’s church. She carefully bathes them, puts them on their best clothes and makes them ready and when Scott asks her “what’s all this for?” she answers, “I don’t want anybody sayin’ I don’t look after my children” (Lee, 2010, p. 134). Calpurnia’s answer, indeed, shows that she considers herself as the children’s mother and among the Whites. Furthermore, she speaks in the Whites’ language and “her grammar was as good as anybody’s in Maycomb” and just “when she was furious Calpurnia’s grammar became erratic” (Lee, 2010, p. 27). According to Lois Tyson, “double consciousness sometimes involves speaking two languages” (2006, p. 362). In the Black’s church, Calpurnia spoke like the rest of the colored folks, in their language and tone. Thus, using two languages is the sign of Calpurnia’s double consciousness. Scott mentions, “That Calpurnia lead a modest double life never dawned on me. The idea that she had a separate existence outside our household was a novel one, to say nothing of having command of two languages” (Lee, 2010, p. 143). Calpurnia has grown up among the Whites since her childhood, but she was still a Black who lives with them too. Consequently, she is living with a merged identity, a dual identity which shines in her using of language. In fact, when she becomes furious, she comes back to her real identity of being a Black, thus her grammar becomes erratic. On the other hand, her tendency toward being in the identity of the Whites can be seen when Jim tells her, “that doesn’t mean you hafta talk that way when you know better” (Lee, 2010, p. 143), and she answers: It’s not necessary to tell all you know. It’s not ladylike- in the second place, folks don’t like to have somebody around knowin’ more than they do. It aggravates ‘em. You’re not gonna change any of them by talkin’ right, they’ve got to want to learn themselves, and when they don’t want to learn there’s nothing you can do but keep your mouth shut or talk their language (Lee, 2010, p. 143). Calpurnia, indeed, has a sense of identity hesitation. She is an African American who lives a dual life. Du Bois responds to the identity hesitation of African Americans and notes that Negroes are Americans by birth, their language, their political ideas, their religion, and citizenship. And their Americanism does not go further, they are still Negroes, from a vast historic race. Although Calpurnia lives with a White family, still she is a Negro. And because of this fact when Jim asks her that why she does not speak in a better language with the other Negroes, she answers, “suppose you and Scott talked colored-folks’ talk at home- it’s be out of place, wouldn’t it? Now what if I talked white-folk’s talk at church, and with my neighbors? They’d think I was puttin’ on airs to beat Moses” (Lee, 2010, p. 143). One of the other features that makes Calpurnia different among the Blacks is her ability to read. She learned literacy from the Whites and also taught it to her son, Zeebo. Blacks were deprived of education and there were lack of educational facilities for them as a reason of segregation and discrimination, based on Du Bois’ description in the “Of the Meaning of Progress”. In this regard, all the Blacks in To Kill a Mockingbird are illiterate except four of them that Calpurnia and his son are two of these four. In fact, segregation has affected all aspects of Blacks’ life which Du Bois refers to it in one of the chapters of The Souls of Black Folk, “Of the Sons of Master and Man”: They go to separate churches, they live in separate sections, they are strictly separated in all public gatherings, they travel separately, and they are beginning to read different papers and books. To most libraries, lectures, concerts, and museums, Negroes are either not admitted at all, or on terms peculiarly galling to the pride of the very classes who might otherwise be attracted (2007a, p. 124). Calpurnia’s tendency toward education and speaking in Whites’ language and also her attempt to teach reading to her son, all shows her endeavor to be equal to Whites. Blacks, indeed, wants to eradicate their inferiority to the Whites and be as equal as them. According to Du Bois, “they must not expect to have things done for them- they must do for themselves” (2007b, p. 186). And this sometimes happens through simulation which again brings the Blacks a sense of double consciousness. Living with Finch’s family since her childhood caused Calpurnia to simulate whites’ behaviors and act like them. On the other hand, being a Negro in blood and also being among their gatherings forces her to act like the Negros when she is with them. Thus, she is an American in her confrontation with the Whites, and an African in the Negroes’ gatherings. Therefore, vacillating between these two separate lives has brought her a dual life and consequently a merged identity. © 2016 ACADEMY PUBLICATION 2296 THEORY AND PRACTICE IN LANGUAGE STUDIES III. CONCLUSION African Americans were always treated as the inferior race throughout the history. They were segregated from the Whites’ society because they were known as the lowbrow and uncivilized people due to their colored skin. “W. E. B. Du Bois was a Black critic who devoted his life to fighting against racism and refuting the superiority of the Whites over the Blacks” (Rezazade & Zohdi, 2016). In his The Souls of Black Folks, which is the collection of his essays regarding racism written in 1903, “he considers racial segregation as a vast veil which has concealed the humanity of African Americans and prevented the good nature of them to be seen by the white world” (Rezazade & Zohdi, 2016). Du Bois believes that African Americans who are forced to live behind the veil, which is created by the Whites, are faced with many problems which one of them is the lack of true self-consciousness. He argues that, because of their dual life as being both Africans and Americans at the same time, African Americans experience a sense of double consciousness and finally a merged identity. Regarding Du Bois concepts of “veil” and “double consciousness”, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird can be a good case in point. For it depicts, in its heart, the life of a Negro woman named Calpurnia who lives with a white family as their maid and simultaneously is among their own race in her house in the Negroes’ settlement, which is segregated from the Whites’ society. Therefore, as an African American she lives a dual life, living among the Whites with a black skin and also living among the Blacks, behind the veil of segregation, with having the features of the Whites’ behaviors along with her. Consequently, vacillating between two opposite races brings her a sense of double consciousness and a merged identity which can be seen clearly in her behavior and language. Therefore, in this study the main focus was to investigate the dual life a Negro under the impact of racism based on Du Bois’ concepts of “veil” and “double consciousness”. REFERENCES [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] Du Bois, W. E. B. (2007a). Oxford world's classics, The Souls of Black Folks. (Ed.) Edwards Brent. New York: Oxford UP. 8124. Du Bois, W. E. B. (2007b). The Conservation of Race, world's classics, The Souls of Black Folks. (Ed.) Edwards Brent. New York: Oxford UP. Edwards, Brent (2007). Introduction. Oxford world's classics, The Souls of Black Folks. By W. E. B. Dubois. New York: Oxford UP. Gooding-Williams, R. (2009). In Shadow of Dubois, Afro-Modern Political Thought in America. Cambridge: Harvard. University Press. Katz, Michael B. and Sugrue T. J. (2001). The Context of The Philadelphia Negro: The City, the Settlement House Movement, and the Rise of the Social Sciences. Modern Critical Views, W .E. B. Dubois. (Ed.) Bloom. Harold: Chelsa House. Lee, Harper. (2010). To Kill a Mockingbird. J. B. Lippincott Company. New York. M’Baye, Babacar. (2009). Discrimination and the American Dream in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in The Sun. Bloom’s Literary Themes: The American Dream. (Ed.) Harold Bloom. New York: Infobase Publishing. Moore, J. H. (2008). Encyclopedia of Race and Racism. Detroit: Thomas Gale. Moses, Wilson J. (2001). The Poetics of Ethiopianism: W.E.B. Dubois and Literary Black Nationalism. Modern Critical Views. W.E.B. Dubois. Philadelphia. (Ed.) Bloom. Harold: Chelsea House. Oxford Advance Learner’s Dictionary of Current English. (7th ed.) (2005). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Peterson, Charles F. (2007). Dubois, Fanon, Cabral: The Margins of Elite Anticolonial Leadership. Lanham: Lexington. Rezazade F. & Zohdi E. (2016). "The Power of being Color-Blind in To Kill a Mockingbird". International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences. Vol. 71, pp. 47-53. Tyson, Lois. (2006). Critical Theory Today. New York. Routledge. Faeze Rezazade is currently an M.A student of English literature in Vali-e-Asr University. She got her B.A in English Literature from Vali-e-Asr University. Esmaeil Zohdi got his PhD from Calcutta University, India in 2000. He is a faculty member of Vali-e-Asr University since 2000. He is an assistant professor of English Literature majoring in political fiction. Moreover, he has been a member of Psyart Foundation from 2008 until now. He has translated two books from English to Persian, one related to Psyart Foundation and one related to writing academic papers. He has also published a good number of articles on a variety of subjects such as poetry, novel and comparative literature. He is presently more involved in a number of projects concerning film studies as well as comparative literature. Sohila Faghfori got her PhD from Calcutta University, India in 2000. She is a faculty member of Vali-e-Asr University since 2000. She is an assistant professor of English Literature majoring in social drama. Moreover, she has been a member of Psyart Foundation from 2008 until now. She has translated two books from English to Persian, one related to Psyart Foundation and one related to writing academic papers. She has also published a good number of articles on a variety of subjects such as poetry, novel and comparative literature. She is presently more involved in a number of projects concerning film studies as well as comparative literature. © 2016 ACADEMY PUBLICATION Copyright of Theory & Practice in Language Studies is the property of Academy Publication Co., LTD and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. 
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