The literary character Atticus Finch from Harper Lee’s classic To Kill A Mocking Bird, has influenced scores of young people to pursue legal careers. Atticus Finch, who defends a wrongly accused black man of raping a white woman in the deep south, became an iconic symbol for the person with a strong moral compass. So it came with much surprise and debate when an old Harper Lee manuscript was published into another book in 2015 that features Atticus Finch as an older man who had joined a White Citizens Council and was critical of civil rights. These are not two Atticus Finches but the same one–both modeled after Harper Lee’s father. Today we’re joined by Joseph Crespino to talk about this history and its significance.
Guest: Joseph Crespino, the Jimmy Carter professor of history at Emory University and author of Atticus Finch The Biography: Harper Lee, Her Father, and the Making of an American Icon.
