Go Set a Countdown Clock

Well.  The world is eagerly awaiting Harper Lee's new novel -- and I hope to be up at midnight tonight to start reading it.  But I'm old and maybe it'll have to wait until tomorrow morning.  Couple of thoughts here, though, based on the pre-publication reviews I've been reading.  First, this may be a more nuanced novel than TKAM -- and I hope it is.  I guess one of the things that made TKAM so successful is that it was clear that Atticus was on the right side of history.  It doesn't take a moral giant to oppose a legalized lynching -- which given that this was set in Alabama in the 1930s -- reminds me of the Scottsboro trials and also the Tuscaloosa lynchings.  Every fair minded person could look at such travesties of justice and say, the law is out of touch with reality. That's why there were some lawyers in the 1930s, though not enough, who emerged to defend African American men accused of attacking white women.  That's what made TKAM a book that won the hearts and minds of readers for so many decades.  Obviously Steven Lubet is the master of TKAM in these parts; I'll just say that I think Atticus' zeal to make a political point (and call into question Mayella's testimony) may have come at the expense of making a simpler point: Tom wasn't physically capable of attacking Mayella.  Thus, the cause lawyer in Atticus may have overcome his ability to work successfully for his client.

But what I find particularly exciting about GSAW is that it presents the difficulties of the 1950s.  Where any fair minded person could say that the court proceedings were unfair, the lawyers were bounded by their society.  Men like Atticus who'd been opposed to legalized lynchings, because they were out of keeping with the rule of law, could still be opposed to more radical change.  That's one of the problems of the south in the 1950s and 1960s.  Appeals to equality were too much for some of the people who'd opposed the worst of the injustices of life under Jim Crow.  And so while the reviews have already passed judgment on this book as not being as good literature as TKAM, I'm cautiously optimistic that it may be a more nuanced and therefore better account of southern legal history.

Nuance may not have been what we needed in the 1960s -- we needed that heroic account that allowed us to tell ourselves that we were on the side of justice.  But maybe GSAW will cause us, now as adults with some distance on this, to wonder how much we were behind the full civil rights movement.  And in that regard GSAW may be the much better book, even if not the one that tells the compact story we want to believe.

By tomorrow morning I hope to have some better considered thoughts, rather than this prediction.  And with that I'll say, ladies and gentlemen, start your kindles!

Comments

[Brian Clarke]

At least from the NYT blurb on the book, it certainly looks like the proto-Atticus in GSAW evolved significantly in the writing of TKAM. I honestly may not read GSAW even though TKAM is my #1 book of all time, and undoubtedly the most influential on me personally. And that impact largely came via Atticus.

[Al Brophy]

Yeah, interesting question of whether Atticus evolved during the writing of TKAM or whether he stayed the same but the times changed. So that someone who was against lynching in the 1930s was seen as conservative in the 1950s. Part of that may be, that it easier to be against lunching than in favor of a robust vision of equality. There's a huge literature on this for the 1950s and 1960s and my hope is that GSAW may be yet another data point about conflicts within the south as it emerged from Jim Crow.

[PaulB]

Professor Brophy, as an academic and resident of the Research Triangle, perhaps you can compare and contrast the Scottsboro trials with the Duke lacrosse players case. In both cases, we had racial animus drive an attempt to railroad innocent defendants. There is of course the difference that in Scottsboro, the hatred was directed by poorly educated rednecks filled with anger while in Durham the hatred was directed by those filled with anger who were....faculty members at an elite university. As a professor whose research interests are focused on questions of race, what did you do about this case a few miles away from your office?

[Al Brophy]

I find comparisons to the horror that was Jim Crow to be in extremely poor taste.

[PaulB]

Why, Al? Do you honestly think that going to jail for rape that never happened because it made your fellow professors feel good about themselves was a minor matter?

[AGR]

This is a great discussion of the issues involved in publishing this new work. Having a lively and substantive discussion with on FB with people about the writing process, publishing, race, and law. A real opportunity.

[Brian Clarke]

Atticus Finch was more than just being against lynching. He counseled Scout and Jem on seeing Tom and other blacks as people, who were entitled to respect, dignity, and politeness in addition to due process. While certainly a man of his time in ways, he was extremely progressive in many more ways. So, to hear that Atticus in GSAW is opposed to integration and railing against the civil rights movement is ... disturbing.

[Al Brophy]

Thanks for the kind words, AGR. Really appreciatee them.

Brian, we'll all know a lot more very soon.. But I think what you're seeing illustrates how varied the reactions to the civil rights movement was, in the 1950s and 1960s, especially. People who supported the vanguard of the NAACP's campaign, for instance, the opposition to lunching, the campaign for fairer treatment in the criminal justice system, equal treatment in railroad cars, had a harder time with integration of schools. (Or supported eugenics in the 1920s and 1940s, as I'm now hearing that Atticus did!)

[Kim Krawiec]

Can't wait to hear more from you on this, Al. I was planning to skip it, based on the reviews and questions about her capacity to consent, etc. But your post has convinced me that there might be something interesting here.

[AGR]

The figure of the southern white liberal of that period is interesting to ponder, as you can see just where the lines are drawn when people are forced to think about the true meaning of equality. After all, there were what could be called " liberal" slave owners (people who thought themselves liberal) who called themselves ( as we say in the south) giving forms of respect to black people in a number of small ways. These things never really threatened the balance of power in society. Jefferson had no problem addressing blacks by honorifics, and got into trouble with some southern whites for signing off his letter to Banneker with the usual " your obedient servant" business. He bowed to blacks when they bowed to him. The nanny who looked after his grandchildren was allowed to spank them when they misbehaved. There are many other things that could be cited, but these things did not break down white supremacy or imperil slavery. They are worth noting for they tell us something about the way those societies functioned, and how some people performed under the racial strictures of their time.