Discuss the nature of prejudice in "To Kill a Mockingbird" by studying the way Harper Lee presents the black characters and the social stratification of Maycomb.

In the American south many years ago, the southern states fought to keep slavery legal in the civil war against the northern states, who wanted it abolished. Even though they may have lost the war, the attitudes of the people had to blacks did not change and would ensure that the more modern liberal ideas of equality between the races and equal justice would never really work, however law enforced they may have been. The …

…' The people of Maycomb weren't mean at heart; they just spent their whole lives behaving how they thought was right because they have never known any better but really losing sight of the true way to be. Therefore, prejudice is greatly responsible for a lot of much social injustice, and Harper Lee describes people's mistakes in an honest and sympathetic way that leaves the reader with a better understanding of the prejudice in society.