Remembering Tom Robinson

This is the summer to re-read To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Lees Pulitzer Prize-winning story has new
resonance in 2015, not because of her long-awaited sequel, Go Set a Watchman, but because of Michael
Brown, Tamir Rice, Tanisha Anderson, Eric Garner and Freddie Gray, the black men and women killed by
police whose deaths have sparked public outcry and attention to systemic racism in policing and the legal
system in small and big cities across the country. Re-reading To Kill a Mockingbird in the context of the
Black Lives Matter movement gives a voice to Tom Robinson that wasnt there before.
To Kill a Mockingbird, set in Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930s and written in the 1950s, is focused
squarely on the white community of Maycomb. Three white characters stand out: the plucky female
protagonist Scout, her father Atticus Finch, and Boo Radley, a reclusive neighbor. But, the central tension
of the novel revolves around the court case of Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white
woman.
Atticus Finch, the much-celebrated lawyer with a public commitment to equal rights and justice for all,
defends Tom Robinson, and Atticus gets all the attention. Its easy to see why. He gives good speeches
inside the courthouse. He takes a case that will be hard. He tries. But he loses the case, and while many
readers remember his exit from the courthouse, Miss Jean Louise stand up, your fathers passing, there
is no such voice given to the passing of Tom Robinson.
They shot him seventeen times.
Prison guards shot Tom Robinson seventeen times after he went stark raving mad and tried to
escape. After his conviction, Tom is sent to Enfield Prison Farm, 70 miles away. Hes not allowed any
visitors. His last words are, goodbye Mr Finch, there aint nothing you can do now. Tom knew he would
be killed in jail.
When Atticus learns of the shooting, he comes home to ask Calpurnia, the Finchs maid, to go along with
him to tell Toms wife. In the two scenes, in the Finchs kitchen and at Tom Robinsons house, there is no
voice of grief for Tom Robinson. Calpurnias only response is Yessir.
When Toms wife Helen sees Atticus she collapses. Her reaction is voiceless, as if there is no room in the
story for grieving a black man killed at the hands of the law.
Theres certainly no place in white Maycomb of the 1930s for grieving Tom. When Atticus sister hears the
news, she focuses on how hard it is for Atticus. She shows Scout how to be a lady by returning to the
tea party in the parlor without speaking of Toms death. When the newspaper editor writes a piece
invoking the famous metaphor, he focuses on Toms disability, his crippled arm, and remains silent on the
issue of race.
It takes two days for Maycomb to forget Tom Robinson. Hes been forgotten for most of the 65 years
since the books publication. Until now. In this moment, when Black Lives Matter, Tom has a voice.
His death can be remembered for what it is, a violent death at the hands of a system designed by racism.
Harper Lees sequel is coming out in 2015, but the rest of the story has already played out, over and over
again in the courts, in the jails, and in the streets. In 2015, Boo Radley would use his cellphone to take
video of police brutality, Tom Robinson would get a hashtag, and Barack Obama would give a eulogy at
First Purchase A.M.E. church in Maycomb.

MaureenRamirezisPolicyandResearchDirectoratGrowth&JusticeandaformerRegentofthe
UniversityofMinnesota.