Transcript: Is To Kill A Mockingbird Still Relevant Today?

NARRATOR: THE CITY OF BIRMINGHAM – 200 MILES HOURS NORTH OF MONROEVILLE WAS AT THE CENTER OF CIVIL RIGHTS BATTLE.

Sound up: - Segregation forever

George Wallace 1963 Inauguration Speech: In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.

DIANE MCWHORTER : When I started researching my book and I was going through the newspapers looking at the spring of ’63, which was of course when, you know, Martin Luther King came to Birmingham and led the demonstrations that ended up leading to the end of segregation in America. And with the police dogs and the fire attacking the young children and everything. And I was leafing through the newspapers, the local newspapers, and I saw the movie ads for To Kill a Mockingbird and I thought, wow, that’s when that was?

NARRATOR: GROWING UP IN BIRMINGHAM, DIANE MCWHORTER WAS A CLASSMATE OF MARY BADHAM’S. AND SO THE ENTIRE FIFTH GRADE OF THE BROOKE HILL SCHOOL FOR GIRLS WENT TO THE PREMIERE.

DIANE MCWHORTER: I remember watching it, first assuming that Atticus was going to get Tom Robinson off because Tom Robinson was innocent and Atticus was played by Gregory Peck and of course he’s going to win. Then, as it dawned on me that it wasn’t going to happen, I started getting upset about that. Then I start getting really upset about being upset because by rooting for a black man, you are kind of betraying every principle that you had been raised to believe. And I remember thinking that what would my father think, if he saw me fighting back these tears when Tom Robinson gets shot. It was a really disturbing experience. To be crying tears for a black man was so taboo that um, you know. It made me confront the difficulty that southerners have in going against people that they love.

MARY BADHAM: The messages are so clear and so simple. It’s a way of life, it’s a way of thinking about life and getting along with one another and learning tolerance. Racism and bigotry haven’t gone anywhere, ignorance hasn’t gone anywhere. This is not a black and white America 1930s issue. These are issues that are global.

SCOTT TUROW: We may live eventually in a world where that kind of race prejudice is unimaginable. And people may read this story in 300 years and go “so what was the big deal?” But the fact of the matter is that in today’s America, it still speaks a fundamental truth.

MARY TUCKER: the attitudes that were there in the '30s, they have not all changed. So, yes, it is relevant.