What Did Martin Luther King Jr. and Atticus Finch have in Common?

The American South in the 1930s was a place where people were friendly, air was sweet, and pie was homemade and always delicious. It was a time that is sure to conjure up wistful feelings in the hearts of many people who feel as if it were only yesterday that their mother was dishing up big plates of her ‘world famous’ peach cobbler.
And yet, it was also a time when racial inequality was not an uncommon conviction and the Ku Klux Klan was in full swing. How could an era that produces such nostalgia and fond memories also harbor some of the darkest hours of American racism?
This epoch is the backdrop against which the film “To Kill a Mockingbird” is set. The story is told through the eyes of 6 year-old tomboy Jean Louise ‘Scout’ Finch (Mary Badham) whose father Atticus (Gregory Peck) is a lawyer defending a black man accused of assaulting a white woman.
At the beginning of the story, Scout and her brother Jem (Phillip Alford) befriend a bucktoothed know-it-all kid named Dill (John Menga.) The trio spends their summer days playing on a tire swing and relating horror stories of a reclusive neighbor who supposedly stabbed people with scissors and ate cats.
It is through this veil of childish innocence that we see such harsh issues as racism, injustice, and inequality. Yet Atticus is a powerful mediator between the worlds of children and adults. Although he deals with society’s worst imperfections on almost a daily basis, he has not lost faith in the goodness of humanity. He has a strong sense of justice and tries to instill his principles of fairness in his children. He encourages Scout not to judge someone “until you’ve climbed into his shoes and walked around in them.”
I first read Harper Lee’s book when I was in the fifth grade. As soon as I had finished the final chapter, I was convinced that I did not want to see the movie. Not because I hadn’t enjoyed the book, but because I knew that there was no way the film could ever come close to capturing the emotion that the book so powerfully portrays.
I think it was my dad who talked me into giving the movie a shot. I was astonished by how beautifully it accomplished what, at the time, I thought to be impossible.
It explores the blinding effects of racism and wide moral spectrum of humankind with the same unflinching yet somehow gentle courage that made the book so powerful.
Most of the weight from the story comes from Atticus, who though he recognizes the human capacity for evil, still believes that no person is entirely bad. He sees that badness comes from those who try to abuse others who have done no harm. Yet, although we all have the capacity to ‘kill mockingbirds,’ with that aptitude comes the ability to protect and care for them.