I have nothing but pity in my heart for the Chief Witness for the State. She is the
victim of cruel poverty and ignorance. But, my pity does not extend so far as to her
putting a man's lif e at stake, which she has done in an effort to get rid of her own
guilt. Now I say "guilt," gentlemen, because it was guilt that motivated her. She's
committed no crime. She has merely broken a rigid and time-honored code of our
society, a code so severe that whoever breaks it is hounded from our midst as unfit to
live with. She must destroy the evidence of her offense. But, what was the evidence
of her offense? Tom Robinson, a human being. She must put Tom Robinson away
from her. Tom Robinson
was
to her a daily reminder of what she did.
She did something that in our society is unspeakable: She kissed a black man. Not
an old uncle, but a strong, young negro man. No code mattered to her before she
broke it, but it carne crashing down on her afterwards.
The witnesses for the State, with the exception of the sheriff of Lincoln County, have
presented themselves to you gentlemen to this Court -- in the cynical confidence
that their testimony would not be doubted; confident that you gentlemen would go
along with them on the assumption, the evil assumption, that oil negroes lie; oil
negroes are basically immoral beings; all negro men are not to be trusted around
our women, an assumption that one associates with minds of their caliber, and which
is in itself, gentlemen, a lie -- which I do not need to point out to you.
And so, a quiet, humble, respectable negro, who has had the unmitigated TEMERITY
to feel sorry for a white woman, has had to put his word against two white peoples.
The defendant is not guilty. But somebody in this courtroom is.
Now, gentlemen, in this country our courts are the great levelers. In our courts, all
men are created equal. I'm no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts
and of our jury system. That's no ideal to me. That is a living, working reality!
Now I am confident that you gentlemen will review without passion the evidence that
you have heard, come to a decision, and restore this man to his family.
In the name of God, do your duty. In the name of God, believe Tom Robinson.