Why are different races and social classes treated so differently? Why was education so horrible at times? Two of the characters in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee are Jem and Scout. As Jem and Scout grow up, they discover that many things are not what they seem. Some people are not treated as well as others simply because of the color of their skin, their lifestyle, their level of education, or even just an urban legend. At the time, in courthouses, black people had to sit on a balcony. Many people in those days were so poorly educated that they could not read the hymnals in church, if they had them. Harper Lee wrote a story to express the different types of prejudices and educational problems in the 1930s in Maycomb County, Alabama. Racial prejudice is heavily featured in this Maycomb County novel. In the court scene in To Kill a Mockingbird, there is a black section and a white section, which are separated. The colorful balcony ran along three walls of the courtroom like a veranda on the second floor, and from there we could see everything (Lee 219). This shows unfair segregation for black people because they have to sit on the balcony but white people don't. If a white man had committed the crime Tom Robinson was accused of, the investigation would have been much more thorough. “Have you called a doctor, Sheriff?” asked Atticus. “No sir,” said Mr. Tate (Lee 224). Just because he was a black man, they accused Tom of being guilty just because people said he was. Although not directly related to the court scene, it is shown that there is racial prejudice when Tom runs away from Mayella Ewell instead of staying, so they thought him guilty for this. There was no way he would have dared hit a white woman and expecting her to be in the middle of a paper... finally made her stop. Another serious educational problem at the time was that very large numbers of blacks were illiterate. Jem said it looked like they could save the collection money for a year and buy some hymnals, Cal laughed. “It wouldn’t do any good,” she said. “They can’t read” (Lee 165). This just shows that the black community was often not well educated. Growing up in Maycomb was also a difficult ordeal, as it was difficult to get an education. Harper Lee wrote a story to express the different types of prejudice in 1930s Maycomb County, Alabama. The thesis was explained using actual quotes from To Kill a Mockingbird and then gave a logical explanation on its relevance. Prejudice still affects the world today and remains a horrible thing. Works Cited Lee, Harper. To kill a mockingbird. New York: Grand Central, 1982. Print