In a country where intolerance for other people's differences evolves into violence all too often there was a ray of hope in a movie. This country has not made much tangible progress in race relations in a very long time, or so it seems anyway. However, by viewing two movies that were filmed over forty years apart I see that there has been some progress as miniscule as it may be. The two movies were To Kill a Mocking Bird, and A Time to Kill. I feel that movies reflect society and these two movies showed very different societies.

To Kill a Mocking Bird was based on the classic novel by the same name. This novel and movie was based around a black man's trial for rape. The man was clearly innocent and incapable of committing the crime for which he was accused. However, the jury still found the man guilty regardless of the fact that there was no actual evidence that the man committed the crime. The all white jury believed the testimony of two white community members over the facts and the testimony of a black man. This certainly showed a cultural bias towards the black population. The people believed that all black men were liars

The second movie, A Time To Kill filmed forty-two years after To Kill a Mocking Bird, was also based on a novel and it also focused on racial discrimination. However, this time things were not so cut and dry. The story was built around a young black girl who was brutally raped and beaten by two young white males. The young girl's father, who had known that a similar case had been tried nearby and the rapists were set free, killed the two rapists. The case went to trial and the guilty black man was acquitted because he was considered to be legally insane at the time of the murders. This tells me that today's society regards the young black girls life more than they regard the lives of the two young rapists.

Have we made progress in race relations? I say yes we have made progress in leaps and bounds. Have we had set backs? Most definitely, should we have been able to go without these set backs I believe we would be on our way to a very accepting and peaceful America. However, these set backs have cost us most of our progress so we are left barely ahead of where we started. I sincerely hope we can overcome these set backs and other obstacles that will arise so that one day our children may stay colorblind throughout their lives and yet still see all the beauty in a diverse world.

The hate group the Klu Klux Klan was a very big factor in the second movie. While this is certainly a step backwards for American society, a similar group was present in the first movie. An angry mob of white citizens intended to kill the suspect before his trial. While the Klan was much more organized than the angry mob it served the same purpose. The difference was the mob portrayed individual hatred evolving from a cultural bias, the Klan showed this hatred institutionalized i

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1203
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)