Mockingbird Summer

Content Warning: This section discusses racism and racialized violence.

Lynda Rutledge explores the ways in which the historical and cultural context influence the lives of the characters in her novel. Corky’s transformative arc is defined by the cultural changes and historical shifts of the 1960s. The summer of 1964 is the last of her childhood and shapes her “in ways [she] can’t control or anticipate” (6). Corky grows up in small, segregated town, where the divisive lines between races are distinct: white people reside in the Northside and Black people in the Southside. Corky’s family accepts the racial divide as normal. Her “cranky” grandfather, Papa Cal, has lived “in allegiance to Jim Crow laws” (42) his whole life and does not understand why people try to “change things.” Her father Cal, while ideologically opposed to racism, is “a man of his times” (277), believing that segregation maintains a “separate peace” (222). However, the socio-political activism of a new generation brings a wave of change in the community. Corky’s brother, Mack, a college student influenced by the momentum of the civil rights movement, encourages Corky’s emerging social consciousness. Corky observes the people around her and understands that the world extends beyond her limited understanding.