To Kill a Mockingbird

Today we started our novel study with an overview of the key characters in the novel:
Scout - Jean Louise Finch, "almost six" at the start of the novel, a tomboy, smart (she can read).
Jem - Jeremy Atticus Finch, "nearly ten" and Scout's older brother, takes care of her. He changes during the novel.
Atticus - their father, a widower. He is a lawyer.
Minor characters include their friends and neighbours, for example Miss Maudie, Dill, Calpurnia, Aunt Alexandra, and Mrs Dubose.
The two other important characters in the novel are:
Boo - Arthur Radley, the mysterious neighbour who has spent most of his life locked in his house. The townsfolk spread rumours about him but he's really a shy person.
Tom Robinson - a black man accused of raping Mayella, a white girl. Tom is married to Helen and has children. He works for Link Deas. Tom's arm was injured in an accident when he was younger.

It is interesting to contrast the Cunningham family and the Ewell family. They are both poor, white families living near Maycomb. How does Harper Lee use them as an example of the idea that people should "not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character"?

Then we talked about the setting. Time, place and social context are important; this story could not have happened in a different time or place.

• Maycomb - a fictional small town. This is important because it's a small community, everyone knows everyone else's business, and there is a lot of pressure on people to conform to what the town expects of them.
• Alabama - this is important because it's in the southern United States, so there are a lot of racist attitudes and assumptions.
• 1930s - Slaves were freed less than 70 years beforehand; older people in the town might still remember the days when they had slaves. The country has not yet come to accept blacks and whites as equal. This is also the time of the great depression, when there was a lot of poverty, especially in rural areas.

Although set in the 1930s, this novel was written in the 1960s. What else was happening in America at that time? How is it relevant to the ideas in the novel?