50th Anniversary of To Kill A Mockingbird

July 16, 2010 at 2:12 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment
Tags: academy award, brock peters. civil rights movement, gregory peck, harper lee, racism, to kill a mockingbird

Gregory Peck and Brock Peters in To Kill A Mockingbird, 1962

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee turns 50 this month.

I read this book and saw the movie in high school.  It’s a beautifully written story and I’ve seen the movie more times than I can count.  But what always struck me about To Kill A Mockingbird wasn’t so much the story as much the context in which the story entered the mainstream arts & culture.  The book was published in 1960 and the film premiered in 1962: after the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and before the 1963 March on Washington.  In no way am I implying that Mockingbird was the result or catalyst for either event (the foundation for the civil rights movement was laid by lives and deaths of those on whose shoulders I stand).  It’s just striking to me that this book and movie became popular at a time when the plates of the racial landscape of this country were colliding and no one was certain how the dust would settle.

Do you have any thoughts on To Kill A Mockingbird?

Valerie Linson
Series Producer, Basic Black