Go Set a Watchman.

AuthorRapping, Jonathan A.
PositionBook review

Go Set a Watchman. By Harper Lee. New York: HarperCollins. 2015. P. 278. $27.99.

"A Lawyer is either a social engineer or ... a parasite on society ...

Charles Hamilton Houston

Introduction

"[T]he first thing I lost in law school was the reason that I came." (2)

This prescient quote by an unnamed law student defines, in a single sentence, our growing problem in training lawyers. From the moment he or she steps foot in a law school classroom, the future lawyer feels a strong pull to pursue a career that has nothing to do with justice. The law school experience will discourage the future lawyer from pursuing a career advocating for those in society who most need a voice. Once graduated, the young lawyer will enter a world where he or she is rewarded for billing the most hours at the highest rate, rather than for serving those with the least access to justice. As a result, most lawyers will experience a sense of purposelessness in their careers, (3) and most low-income Americans will not have access to a lawyer when important interests are at stake. (4)

The legal profession is in need of heroes--idealistic role models who will inspire today's lawyers--both to eschew the values that drive the dominant legal profession, and to address the justice gap. No person, either fictional or real, has done this for more current and future lawyers than Atticus Finch, the hero of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. (5) The book tells the story of one lawyer in one case. His heroism lies in his willingness to valiantly represent a black man accused of raping a white woman in small-town 1930s Alabama, despite the derision and hatred he and his family receive from members of the community. The book was made into an Academy Award--winning film featuring Gregory Peck, one of the nation's biggest Hollywood stars. Together, the book and the movie captured the public imagination, presenting a model of what a lawyer should be: a vehicle through which we can realize our most noble ideals, even in the face of great opposition. Mockingbird inspired the nation to believe in its system of justice and to revere the role of the lawyer at its foundation.

But even though he has been enshrined among the nation's greatest folk heroes, Atticus is not without detractors. There have been critics who, despite Atticus's dedicated representation of Tom Robinson, fault him for doing little to challenge the racist structure of Maycomb, Alabama, the fictional setting of Mockingbird. And recently, the publication of Go Set a Watchman--Lee's second novel, written before Mockingbird but discovered decades later (6)--in which an older Atticus harbors racist ideas, has led many to renounce the Atticus of Mockingbird, characterizing him as a lawyer and a person not worthy of admiration.

As a law professor and the president of a non-profit organization that trains and supports public defenders in some of our nation's most broken criminal justice systems, I regularly work with current and future lawyers. Many of these lawyers struggle to maintain their idealism in arenas--both academic and professional--that frequently promote values inconsistent with the principles they strive to embrace. From this perspective, I appreciate having a popular culture symbol, like Atticus, that both reminds us of the noble role a lawyer can play in addressing injustice and inspires our profession to be better.

One can certainly look beyond the story of Mockingbird to paint a less flattering picture of Atticus--whether by arguing that he did not do enough to promote the cause of justice, or by claiming that the Atticus of Watchman is the same as the Atticus of Mockingbird. But doing so is not necessary. Atticus is a fictional character. In an effort to destroy the hero, we can always speculate about who Atticus is beyond his representation of Tom Robinson. But we can also choose to look to the story of Mockingbird as one that stands alone--a story about one lawyer in one case doing what is righteous and noble. The latter approach allows us to retain an important symbol in the American quest for justice. Given how desperately we need such symbols, this is the view I recommend.

In this essay, I seek to demonstrate that, despite the many reasons others have found for criticism, we should continue to hold Atticus Finch up as a role model for our profession. While he is certainly not the only role model for the next generation of lawyers, as a profession we have not arrived at a point where we can afford to discard a symbol that has the potential to inspire young lawyers to make the world a little more just. Atticus certainly fits that bill.

  1. ATTICUS FINCH: INSPIRING A NATION

    In 1960, when she published Mockingbird, Harper Lee introduced the world to a man who instantly became a symbol of what justice means in America and of the important role that lawyers play in promoting it. Two years later, the book was made into a much-loved Academy Award-winning movie. The movie significantly expanded the influence of Mockingbird as a vehicle through which our nation came to understand the role that lawyers play in protecting and promoting justice. For anyone concerned about justice, it is impossible to overstate the movie's impact on the American consciousness.

    To appreciate the importance of Mockingbird, and of Atticus Finch as a role model, one must consider what was happening in America at the time. The nation was grappling with the fact that many Americans were being denied basic civil rights simply because of their skin color. Slavery had been abolished for nearly one hundred years, (7) yet in so many walks of life, black people were experiencing intense discrimination. Six years earlier, the Supreme Court had declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional, (8) yet there was strong resistance to any efforts to integrate schools. The same year that Mockingbird was published, demonstrators organized highly publicized sit-ins at lunch counters to protest ongoing racial segregation. (9) Civil rights demonstrators were preparing Freedom Rides for the following year to challenge the continued practice of segregation in interstate bus travel. And the battle to ensure voting rights would soon lead young people from across the country to join civil rights activists in Mississippi for Freedom Summer. (10)

    Not only were we as Americans struggling to realize basic civil rights in areas of education, public accommodations, and voting rights, we had also come to understand that discrimination in the criminal justice system was driving outcomes that were patently inconsistent with who we claimed to be--and wanted to be--as a nation. The most famous example, the trial of the Scottsboro Boys, was still fresh in the minds of most Americans.

    In 1931, nine black teenagers were on a train passing through Alabama when two young white women accused them of rape. (11) Deputies in Scottsboro, Alabama pulled the nine young men from the train and charged them. They were rushed to trial twelve days later. (12) Only on the morning of trial were they appointed counsel--two lawyers who were not qualified to try criminal cases. (13) As expected, the nine boys were convicted, and eight were sentenced to death (the ninth, who was only thirteen at the time, was sentenced to life in prison). (14)

    This obvious injustice seemed to awaken America's moral outrage. The case became a cause celebre. Across the nation and the world, voices decried the obvious unfairness of the system that sought to execute these children. (15) The case dramatically tested who we believed ourselves to be as Americans. It forced us to look into the mirror, and what we saw was odious. The public outrage about this case reminded us of the core values of American democracy: we root for the underdog, and we don't like bullies. The Scottsboro Boys case brought into focus the fact that the accused are the underdogs of the criminal justice system and that their public defenders are the ones standing up to the bullies--the ones who symbolize those American ideals. The case also highlighted the extent to which race shaped our views about justice.

    No institution in America serves as a greater barometer of our commitment to our ideals than the criminal justice system. (16) It is this arena where our commitment to our most democratic values--due process, equal justice, respect for the dignity of the individual regardless of status--is tested. In 1960, the operation of our criminal justice system fell far short of this rhetoric. (17) Mockingbird was written at a time when we were engaged in deep, national soul-searching, when we were more and more open to the arrival of a hero to rescue us from our hypocrisy. In this sense, Atticus was an important cultural figure who spoke to the nation with a message that could not have been timelier.

    The impact of Mockingbird, however, was not only in the relevance of its message, but also in the way it was delivered. First, Lee wrote in a style that made the novel accessible to a broad audience. As one scholar has noted, "the simplicity of the storytelling allowed Atticus's message of racial justice to reach a broader audience" than other writers who were more complex in their discussion of race. (18) Mockingbird's narrative style allowed Lee "to reveal holes in the myth of equality in the South, but in a way that both Southerners and Northerners could understand." (19) Lee's attempt to move the public succeeded. Mockingbird won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. (20) It has sold more than 40 million copies, (21) and it universally appears in eighth grade curricula. (22)

    Second, in choosing Scout, Atticus's nine-year-old daughter, as the narrator, Lee emphasized the obviousness of the book's message. Through this young and innocent narrator, the reader is reminded of basic principles of right and wrong, which are so clear that even a child understands them. The impact of these...

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