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| Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch |
Remember To Kill a Mockingbird?
Atticus was Scout's widowed father. And an unswervingly moral lawyer.
Atticus, Scout and her brother Jem lived in Alabama and their story takes place during the Great Depression.
In case you don't recall it, or haven't read this marvelous, Pulitzer Prize winning novel, here's a synopsis. But you really should do yourself a favor and read Harper Lee's brilliant work, and then see the film.
At any rate, at one critical point in the story, Atticus chooses to defend Tom Robinson, a black man who has been unjustly accused of raping a white woman.
Very few white people in the town are sympathetic. So the all-white jury quickly renders a guilty verdict when Robinson goes on trial.
In the film version, Atticus camps out on the front steps of the small town jail before Robinson is sent to prison. During the night a crowd of white folks gather in front of the jail, hell-bent on lynching Robinson. Atticus stands them down. But it's Scout who diffuses the situation by simply asking one of the men how his son is doing.
It was this simple act that appealed to another person's humanity that caused the crowd of white men to walk away in embarrassment for what they were about to do.
Throughout the book and film, Atticus stands tall. Refusing to give in to group pressure, and he continues to see Robinson as a fully equal human being who was unjustly accused. (Gregory Peck won an Oscar for his role, and the screenplay won an Oscar as well.)
Harper Lee won a Pulitzer because her writing was deeply personal and deeply universal in its telling of the truth - life in a small southern town in the 1930s.
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| Harper Lee |
With the current focus on Alabama and the senatorial campaign of Roy Moore, I wonder what Atticus and Harper Lee would have to say about it? It's ironic that the character of Atticus was a lawyer, and Moore was suspended from his federal judgeship on two occasions for refusing to follow the US Constitution and encouraging Alabama residents to follow his example.
Moore also has made a point of parading his so-called Christian values as an excuse for why people should vote for him, even though he is in the middle of a scandal involving multiple cases of pursuing teen-aged girls when he was over 30 years of age. He has also made racist remarks. He makes no apologies for his behavior and continues to deny the allegations. And he says he'll continue to be guided by his "Christian values" if he's elected to a seat in the Senate.
It's also highly ironic that Mr. Moore has most recently been endorsed by President Trump, who has been accused, by at least a dozen women, of inappropriate sexual contact. The Washington Post, a few weeks before election day, broke the story of a recorded interview where Mr. Trump boasts about his own sexual philosophy. Shortly after the story broke, Mr. Trump, under pressure from his campaign heads, half-heartedly apologized. - actually it was more of an excuse for his behavior than an apology. Now that he's president, Mr. Trump has denied that it was his voice that was recorded. He's also denied all of the allegations made during the campaign. (His accusers say otherwise.)
I feel sorry for the people of Alabama who have to face a senatorial race with such a person on the ballot. I feel sorry for the evangelical pastors of Alabama who have been telling their congregations to vote for Moore, as a test of their own Christianity.
Most of all I weep for our nation that doesn't seem to have a single Atticus among its republican members of congress (except two) who had the courage to speak out and break away from Moore and from the president - the supposed leader of their party. The subsequent results of Alabama's special election should serve as a clarion call that the republican party would do well to heed.
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Here's the trailer for To Kill a Mockingbird, with the scene where Atticus explains to Scout why he's defending Tom Robinson.
Photo Credits: top pintrest, bottom biography.com
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