Lessons from 'Mockingbird' film 50 years later
By Katie McLaughlin, CNN
(CNN) - "Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passin'."
One of the greatest lines in Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "To Kill a Mockingbird," as well as the film adaptation of the same name, was spoken by the Rev. Sykes as attorney Atticus Finch exited the fictional Maycomb, Alabama, courtroom.
Black spectators, relegated to the courthouse balcony, stood in solidarity with the courageous white lawyer who had defended Tom Robinson, an African-American man wrongly accused of rape in the 1930s Deep South. Jean Louise "Scout" Finch, Atticus' young daughter, watching from the so-called colored balcony, was prodded by the reverend to do the same.
"To Kill a Mockingbird" is the story of single dad Atticus Finch and his family, as told from the standpoint of Scout. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the film phenomenon.
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just this small paragraph draws the chair closer as the curtain rises