The lawyer isn't really that good a role model. He gets a black man off of a rape charge mostly by attacking the alleged victim's character. He can't bring himself to hate a white man that wants to lynch that same black man, or indeed even Hitler. In the end he conspires with the sheriff to obstruct justice when a nice middle class white man kills a poor white man.
In this way he reflect the actual time and place, where people who could in some respects be seen as liberal and generous, like the governer at that time, weren't actually doing anything to achieve true equality (whether black/white, male/female, rich/poor) and when racial matters came to a head they got swept aside as the core issue was never dealt with from within and had a solution forced on them from outside.
I get the feeling the author was trying to be a little contrarian, but still brings up lots of interesting details and examples, particularly with hindsight from the present.
No, he tries to get a black man off of a rape charge, but he fails. And, it is worth noting, the black man was (almost certainly) actually innocent, the alleged victim was actually the aggressor, and the black man is ultimately killed by a vigilante.
> like the governer at that time, weren't actually doing anything to achieve true equality
I think that overstates the article's position. The article mentions several things the governor did to works towards equality:
> He worked to extend the vote to disenfranchised blacks. He wanted to equalize salaries between white and black schoolteachers. He routinely commuted the death sentences of blacks convicted in what he believed were less than fair trials. He made no attempt to segregate the crowd at his inaugural address. “Ya’ll come,” he would say to one and all, making a proud and lonely stand for racial justice.
People often miss the obstruction of justice at the end. Lee is brilliant in writing a novel about justice then sliding it past the reader as something we deem acceptable because of circumstance.
I feel like your view presupposes that the goal of the book, is that "justice should be the same, no matter who it's for". But (it's been a long time since I've read it) I feel like it's more about doing what is "right" than what is "legal".
The article explores the character of Atticus Finch by comparing him to a 1950s governor of Alabama, "James (Big Jim) Folsom. Both believed in the dignity of black people, and worked for justice on their behalf. But they both did so in a way that avoided directly confronting their peers or standing up to entrenched institutions like segregation.
A second and fascinating point deals with the trial in the book. I always read it as Atticus patiently but relentlessly exposing the obvious truth, which was that Bob Ewell beat up Mayella for daring to touch a black man. The article makes the case for a different interpretation, and offers historical support for it by citing scholars who have explored many historical cases of black-on-white rape.
I don't fully subscribe to every last conclusion of the article, but it did shift my thinking and expand my perspective about the book dramatically.
