Emmett Till and Jim Crow Signs

Today we talked about Emmett Till and Jim Crow laws in America.

When then watched a slide show about Jim Crow Signs.

Chapter 10 was covered in class.

HOMEWORK:

- Read Chapter 11

-Do Questions for Chapter 10

CHAPTERS 7-9 Quiz plus Lynching and Jim Crow laws next class!

ABOUT THE EMMETT TILL STORY:

In 1955, Till and his cousin were sent for a summer stay with Till's great-uncle, Moses Wright, who lived in Money, Mississippi (another small town in the Delta, eight miles north of Greenwood).
Before his departure for the Delta, Till's mother cautioned him to "mind his manners" with white people.

Till arrived on August 21. On August 24, he joined other teenagers as they went to Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market to get some candy and soda. The teens were children of sharecroppers and had been picking cotton all day. The market was owned by a husband and wife, Roy Bryant and Carolyn Bryant, and mostly catered to the local sharecropper population. Till's cousin and several black youths, all under 16, were reported to have been with Till in the store.
Depending on who tells the story, as Till was leaving the store, he either whistled at or physically assaulted and propositioned Carolyn Bryant. She stood up and stormed to her car. The boys were terrified thinking she might return with a pistol and ran away. The news of this greatly angered her husband when he heard of it upon his return from out of town several days later.

Murder
At about 12:30 a.m. on August 27, Bryant and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, kidnapped Emmett Till from his great-uncle's house in the middle of the night. According to witnesses, they drove him to a weathered shed on a plantation in neighboring Sunflower County, where they brutally beat him. The fan around his neck was to weigh down his body, which they dropped into the Tallahatchie River near Glendora, another small cotton town, north of Money.

Chapter 10
Summary:
Scout doesn't think her father can "do" anything besides be a lawyer - he doesn't do hands-on physical work and he doesn't play football. He's much older than the parents of her peers, which makes it difficult for him to take part in such activities. In addition, Atticus wears glasses because he's nearly blind in one eye. Instead of hunting, he sits and reads inside. Scout is slightly ashamed of her father, because it seems like he can't do anything noteworthy. Atticus tells Scout and Jem they can shoot their air guns at tins cans and bluebirds, but that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird. Miss Maudie affirms this, saying to Scout, "Your father's right. Mockingbirds 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. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

One day a dog named Tim Johnson appears in the neighborhood, down the street from the Finch house. He looks strange appearance and walks slowly, with a twitch. The children tell Calpurnia, who takes one look at the dog and immediately calls Atticus to tell him that there's a rabid dog in the neighborhood. Next Calpurnia gets the town operator to call everyone in the neighborhood to warn them. She even runs over to the Radley house and yells a warning to them. Atticus and the sheriff, Heck Tate, drive up, and the sheriff gives Atticus the gun. The dog is so close to the Radley house that a stray bullet might go into the building. Atticus reluctantly takes aim and shoots the dog. The dog crumples into a heap. Jem is dumbstruck with the accuracy of his father’s shot. Miss Maudie tells the children that their father used to be known as "One-Shot Finch," the best dead-shot in the county. She says he doesn't shoot unless he has to, because he feels that when he holds a gun, God has given him an unfair advantage over living beings. Scout wants to tell everyone in school about the incident, but Jem tells her not to. Jem explains that he wouldn't care if Atticus "couldn't do a blessed thing," because Atticus is a gentleman.

Analysis:
The rabid dog is a deadly, dangerous menace to the town, and its presence affects everyone in the community, black or white, irrespective of class or personality. Thus, just like the fire, the dog creates a unifying affect over the neighborhood - no one is immune to it, and everyone must take cover together. Later in the book, Atticus uses the court of law in a similar way, making everyone equal, regardless of ethnicity or social stature. In addition, we also learn that even though Atticus does not like to shoot, he is an excellent marksman. Atticus does not brag about his strengths or talents, he simply uses them when necessary. When Atticus holds the gun, the fate of the entire community rests upon his shoulders, a role which will be discussed more in Chapter 24, where Miss Maudie points out that the town depends upon Atticus to uphold truth for them all. Atticus dislikes handling a gun because he believes it gives him an unfair advantage over all living things. However, in the name of public safety, Atticus’s moral code calls for him to protect his family and neighbors and kill the dog. Again, this shows how a law, such as nature's law or even a personal law such as Atticus's avoidance of guns, must sometime be bent toward a higher aim.

Atticus is not the only important figure in the rabid dog crisis. Calpurnia is the first to recognize the serious nature of the situation, and she immediately makes the right phone calls, and runs to warn the neighbors. She protects many from danger, but receives no praise in comparison to Atticus who actually kills the dog. Though Atticus's skill with a gun is remarkable, Calpurnia's swift action and knowledge are invaluable. This is a reflection of how the black community’s assistance to the white community in Maycomb is often unacknowledged.

Atticus's warning about shooting a mockingbird is the first reference to the novel’s title and mockingbird theme. Atticus doesn't want his children to inflict cruelty upon the innocent mockingbirds just because they have the power to, just as he doesn't like to shoot for sport. His warning serves to emphasize the responsibilities that come with power. Those who have power must be careful not to use it cruelly against the innocent and harmless. The powerful must be careful in choosing whom they target. In the trial of the harmless Tom Robinson, the white people in the jury have power over the black man, and choose to exercise their power poorly, declaring him guilty simply because he is black. Here, Tom Robinson is in the same situation as the mockingbird. The mockingbird theme will also appear at the end of the book when Boo rescues Jem and Scout. To avoid making Boo suffer a trial, the sheriff and Atticus agree that Bob Ewell fell on his own knife.