February 8, 2026: Scout's Truth: Lessons from To Kill a Mockingbird

Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray
Auction Sermon: Marcia Hart won my sermon in the auction and asked that I speak about Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and in particular the character of Scout. What a great opportunity to reflect on truth.

View the video archive of this service here:

Sermon Text

Scout's Truth: Lessons from To Kill a Mockingbird

Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray

UU Church of Bloomington

February 8, 2026

READING

This month we are reflecting on the importance of truth and what it means to be a community committed to truth. We approach this topic in a time when lies and deceit are spouted by the highest leaders in our nation. They tell us not to believe what we can plainly see with our eyes. This is true in the case of the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, but it is also true with respect to the economy, to corruption, to the Epstein files, to what is lawful and what is lawless. George Orwell, the author of Animal Farm and 1984 and the great writer of authoritarianism says, “In a time of deceit telling, the truth is a revolutionary act.”

And so it is. Today, we will touch on truth through the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. And one of the messages of the book is that even when you speak the truth - even when you make the truth plain - as so many are doing today - it does not always mean that justice follows. There can be no justice without truth, but truth alone - especially when people are willing to accept deceit - or lie to themselves - does not guarantee justice. As the great Black American writer, scholar, and intellectual James Baldwin said in his essay, “As Much Truth as One Can Bear,” “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

So, we keep naming the truth - until justice comes.

SERMON

Now for the auction sermon on the Pulitzer Prize winning American novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. I don't expect that everyone has read the book - so here is a very brief synopsis:

Yes, this will contain spoilers.

To Kill a Mockingbird was published in 1960. The setting for the book is a very small town in Alabama in the 1930s - in the midst of the Great Depression. The protagonist and narrator is Scout Finch - a six-year-old white girl growing up in the town, along with her 10-year-old brother, and their widowed father, Atticus Finch, who is in his 50s and is both an attorney and a state legislator. Calpurnia, a Black woman, is the family cook and helps take care of the children and the household.

The story is written in three parts. Part One is focused on the children's silly antics, summer games, and Scout's first year of school. This includes their friendship with Dill, just about Scout's age who visits every summer. There is a neighbor who never comes out the house - named Arthur Radley - who the kids refer to as Boo Radley. They spend a lot of time spinning scary tales of Boo and daring each other to get closer to his house.

Part Two tells the story of Tom Robinson, a Black man accused of raping a white woman. Atticus Finch is assigned as the defense attorney. Much racism is on display both in the bullying the kids experience because their dad is the attorney defending Tom Robinson, and because even after Atticus makes plain as plain can be in court that Tom is innocent, the all white male jury still convicts him. Later, he is killed by guards in prison. There is truth - but no justice for Tom or his family.

In Part Three, the children discover more about Boo Radley. Scout is now eight years old. The father of the woman who accused Tom Robinson of rape - who was shamed by the truth that came out in the trial - that it was he who abused and beat his daughter, tries to kill Scout and her brother to take revenge on Atticus. It is Boo Radley who saves the kids. The book ends with Scout finally meeting Boo, this person who has loomed so terrifying in her imagination, and she realizes how all along he has been looking out for her and her brother and their friend Dill.

Like a lot of American kids, I read To Kill a Mockingbird in middle school or freshman year of high school. It didn't stick with me the way some other novels did but there were some enduring lessons; truths that still hold meaning today.

First, is the one that Stephanie Kimball shared with the children. It's Atticus's teaching that shows up multiple times in the book, “You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.” The book repeats this theme again and again through Scout's various interactions and discoveries with people in the town. It shows up in how she comes to view her verbally abusive neighbor, the town drunk (who's not really a drunk), her discovery of how Boo Radley has been her friend and protector all along.

Second, one of the most treasured aspects of To Kill a Mockingbird is that it is told from the perspective of a young girl, who is not at all interested in growing into what is expected of her as a girl. Scout is a tomboy; she is curious and adventurous and stubborn. She has no interest in dresses or ladies’ teas. She can also be obstinate and prone to fighting, which irritates many of the adults in her life. She acts with little concern for what people think of her - very uncharacteristic for a girl. And this was/is quite affirming and relatable, particularly to young female readers who don't feel they fit in the norms set for them.

Re-reading the novel today, these lessons and appreciations remain. And yet, there was much more in this book that was difficult, and frustrating in my second reading. To Kill a Mockingbird is a beloved American novel. It is often described as “charming, heart-warming, happy, comforting.” That was not my experience.

One of the critiques of the novel is that it falls into the well-worn American vein of white savior stories. This is valid and it is actually more so in the movie. As with many books turned into a movie, it is the movie that lives more in our memory than the book. The Oscar winning performance of Gregory Peck in the 1962 movie portrays Atticus more heroically than the book.

In the book, Atticus doesn't want to represent Tom Robinson - he is forced to; the judge appoints him and he has no choice. And it is not his commitment to anti-racism that leads him in the case, but his sense of duty to the law and his profession as an attorney. And he names that it is a burden he wished he did not have to bear.

Reading To Kill a Mockingbird today, I did not see an anti-racist; but a man reluctant to be put in the position of defending Tom Robinson. It is a challenge to read something written before your time and know whether the author is pointing to some moral failing in their character or if it is a reflection of the time or both. I couldn't help but want Atticus to have more moral clarity.

His daughter, Scout, is a deeply curious child (as most six-year-olds are) and she wants to understand her world. Yet, when Scout comes to him to understand why she is being bullied and called hateful names on account of his work, Atticus gives her only partial answers that don't explain the realities of racism to her. He makes excuses for his racist neighbors and family members and often responds with moral equivalency, telling Scout that everyone is entitled to their own thoughts and “entitled to full respect for their opinions.” (Chapter 11). That feels hard to swallow.

Reading it today called to mind the contemporary critique that too often white parents do not speak to their kids directly and specifically about race and racism; whereas Black parents have no choice. Explaining to your kids that all people are equal, or even that you can't know someone until you “stand in [their] shoes and walk around in them,” is not the same as explaining the reality of racial inequity and white supremacy in the U.S and how it continues to shape our world. And kids need both the principles and also the specifics. When white parents tip-toe around these subjects or are overly general, then their children do not fully understand their world, and are not equipped to recognize it and help change it. This missed opportunity to help Scout understand more fully her town and her world felt so present in To Kill a Mockingbird.

To complicate Atticus a bit more, Harper Lee's novel Go Set a Watchman, published in 2015 as a sequel, is actually thought to be an earlier draft of To Kill a Mockingbird. In it, a 26-year-old Scout returns to her family and hometown after living in New York - and she is quite literally sick about the racism of her father, Atticus, and the family. It is thought that publishers encouraged her to instead write about her childhood times in the town - which offers a more heroic image of her father than a six-year-old might have. Perhaps, though, Harper Lee is not trying to make Atticus into the hero that the publishers and movie made him more to be - offering some complexity and moral complacency to his character.

And while the “white savior” critique has validity, it is also true that unlike some stories in this genre, Atticus does not save Tom. What Atticus does do is prove before the whole town that Tom is innocent - he reveals the facts - the truth - but Tom does not get justice; he is not saved. This feels honest - but heartbreaking.

The only people surprised by the jury's decision are the children. Atticus is convinced it is inevitable; the Black residents of the town know it is. Most of the white members of the town seem right as rain with it. They move on quickly - content to accept lies and injustice that upholds the racial inequity of their culture. The children, however, are heartbroken, distraught, even angry. Atticus is resigned. The Black community is distraught, much to the disappointment of their white employers. But only the children are surprised.

The book also seems to leave some doubt about whether Tom was really trying to escape, as the prison guards said, when they killed him. That Atticus seems to just accept it leaves me wondering if Harper Lee or her publishers expected us to believe the narrative. Or, was she showing us again the ways that lies, by necessity, are accepted and not questioned or investigated, to maintain the structures and fallacy of white supremacy? It is hard not to wonder about this - reading it today amid the contemporary killings of George Floyd, Philando Castile, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, to name only a few.

And doubt is further sewn by the title. Atticus tells his son that you can kill all the bluejays you want, but it is a sin to kill a mockingbird who only brings song and beauty. Scout likens Tom’s killing to that of killing a mockingbird - as in taking the life of something innocent.

This was a meaty and complex topic, Marcia. I thank you for it - and I could say so much more. But I will end with one final reflection. The most important question to me is whether To Kill a Mockingbird should still be recommended reading to middle school and high school students?

The language of the book is dated and painful - it is extremely racist; and unnecessarily so. Yes, it can be argued that it was accurate for the setting of the book - 1930s Alabama. But that doesn't make it less painful and damaging for young readers today. The book is still required reading in some schools and sometimes it is the lone book assigned dealing with race. Black students today rightfully report feeling frustrated by the lack of development of the Black characters and also report that it gives license to their white classmates to use racist slurs.

The book is a story primarily of a white southern family and their experience of ambivalently crossing racial lines prohibited by the white supremacist culture that defined their community. And it was a book written primarily for a white audience.

The book came out in 1960 as the Civil Rights movement was growing in impact and power. Andrew Young, a key leader in the Civil Rights movement, admits that he did not read the book - he didn't need to. He knew its pain vividly. Yet, he acknowledges the context it gave to white Americans to better understand the movement for change that was unfolding in the streets, buses, and lunch counters of the U.S. and opening up more support for its demands.1

Let's celebrate this, and let's recognize that as a people committed to seeking truth and meaning, our learning must continue to wrestle with what we know now and experience now. Fortunately, there is a wide selection of contemporary literature on race in America, written for diverse ages and by diverse authors that speak to the injustices that persist today and the changes that are needed - and which can help young people understand their world today more clearly - The Hate You Give, Punching the Air, or non-fiction Stamped or Just Mercy, to name only a very few.

Throughout my reading of To Kill a Mockingbird, I kept wondering how Calpurnia, the Finch's cook would tell the story of the events of these two years. So, I'll end with a book recommendation. It is not To Kill a Mockingbird. I recommend the book, James, by Percival Everett, a black author. James is a retelling of Mark Twain's acclaimed Adventures of

Huckleberry Finn - told from the perspective of the enslaved man, Jim. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is another American classic that remains on young people's reading lists, yet is not the book we need today. And especially for all of you who read Huck Finn when you were young, I especially recommend to you James.

There is a larger truth here in all of this. Sometimes the things that held meaning in the past or when we were young, when we return to them, leave us with more dis-ease. Not because the books or movies or stories have changed, but because we ourselves have changed and hopefully grown too.

As a faith community committed to truth, learning and growth - questioning, curiosity, and change are companions with us in that journey.

1 PBS. "To Kill a Mockingbird: Southern Reaction 1960" video. https://indiana.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/am12.ela.rv.text.reaction/to-kill-a-mockingbird-southern-reaction-1960/

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