To Kill A MOCKINGBIRD

To Kill a Mockingbird , both the book and movie , stands as nothing less than a classic and is perhaps the great American novel as well as a great movie . When the book was written by Harper Lee , about the Depression South and their views on race relations , the ideas and themes were as relevant in 1930 's America as it was the in the 1960 's even more so as the 1960 's was finally able to address the issues of race and prejudice in ways that it had not been able to do

so at any time in America 's past . In the early 1960 's , with the election of John F Kennedy as the president , a new era of politics was about to show its face . Under the Eisenhower Administration , little had been done in the face of race relations . Kennedy was elected and African Americans , after voting the straight Republican ticket for a hundred years , voted for Kennedy in record numbers and has voted overwhelmingly ever since (Wolper , 1961 ) The book and movie , although set thirty years in the past , is a reflection of this new attitude towards race . Concerning the 1960 's , most of the attention concerning social change , is given to the end of the decade but a great deal of progress was being made at the time in which the movie was being made and shown to audiences . As a result , the message of the movie and its relevance , hit a nerve in the consciousness of the American people , then as well as now . Race relations and the impediments that come from prejudice , have always plagued America to a greater degree than most countries in the world . To Kill a Mockingbird , and its unique and accurate look at the way in which African Americans were treated , helped to put a face and a name to a race in which much of the white community in America , had opinions based upon ignorance . To Kill a Mockingbird , helped to address that problem and in the end , succeeded to a greater degree than any other single movie or book ever has been able to accomplish . During the last months of the 1960 Presidential Campaign , Martin Luther King Jr was jailed in Georgia for refusing to adhere to the segregation laws of a local diner . When John F . Kennedy , the Democratic candidate from Massachusetts , and the front runner , heard of this , he applied political pressure to the governor of Georgia and King was released ( Wolper 1961 ) This act helped Kennedy to capture the African American vote for him as well as for future democrats . African Americans were becoming emboldened by their new found freedom and power and felt that Jim Crow and the segregation laws which had once been seen as sacrosanct in Southern culture , had outlived its welcome and needed to go . In August of 1963 , Martin Luther King have his : I Have a Dream Speech at the Lincoln Memorial and solidified the beliefs and the struggles...