The plot of To Kill a Mockingbird revolves around main character Scout Finch. She lives with her father, Atticus, and brother, Jem. Atticus is a widower, and Scout has no mother. The family resides in a fictional Alabama town called Maycomb, which is in the grips of the great depression. It’s 1935, and racial tensions are high in Maycomb, Alabama. Nonetheless, young Jean Louise Finch—or Scout, as she is fondly called—manages to live a rather carefree, privileged existence, insulated from issues of race. All that changes when Scout watches her father, Atticus Finch, defend an innocent man, Tom Robinson, against a potential death sentence, which looms threateningly against him because of prejudice due to race. Scout begins to realize that just because society portrays something as being true doesn’t mean that it actually is fact. With the help of Atticus, and her older brother Jem, Scout learns that “growing up” often means doing what is right, even when it comes at great cost. To Kill a Mockingbird is now considered an American masterpiece about the power of childhood innocence, morality, and love.
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Thomas "Tom" Robinson - from non-Caucasian background. Tom is put on trial for the rape of a white woman, Mayella Ewell. Atticus is assigned to defend him and stands up to a lynch mob intent on exacting their own justice against him before the trial begins. Tom's left arm is crippled and useless, the result of an accident with a cotton gin when he was a child. Atticus uses this fact as the cornerstone of his defense strategy, pointing out that the nature of Mayella's facial injuries strongly suggest a left-handed assailant.
Reverend Sykes - From a non-Caucasian background. He is the reverend of the First Purchase M.E. African Church in Maycomb County, where most if not all of the African-American characters go to church. He is an authority figure amongst the African-American community. It should be noted that the name is derived from the first money earned by freed slaves which was used to build the church. Gospel singer.