Editing To Kill a Mockingbird (section)

== Autobiographical elements ==
Lee said that ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' is not an [[autobiography]], but rather an example of how an author "should write about what he knows and write truthfully".<ref>"Harper Lee," in ''American Decades''. Gale Research, 1998.</ref> Nevertheless, several people and events from Lee's childhood parallel those of the fictional Scout. [[Amasa Coleman Lee]], Lee's father, was an attorney similar to Atticus Finch. In 1919, he defended two black men accused of murder. After they were convicted, hanged and mutilated,<ref>Shields, pp. 120–121.</ref> he never took another criminal case. Lee's father was also the editor and publisher of the Monroeville newspaper. Although more of a proponent of racial segregation than Atticus, he gradually became more liberal in his later years.<ref>Shields, pp. 122–125.</ref> Though Scout's mother died when she was a baby, Lee was 25 when her mother, Frances Cunningham Finch, died. Lee's mother was prone to a [[neurosis|nervous condition]] that rendered her mentally and emotionally absent.<ref>Shields, pp. 40–41.</ref>

Lee modeled the character of Dill on [[Truman Capote]], her childhood friend known then as Truman Persons.<ref>Krebs, Albin. "Truman Capote Is Dead at 59; Novelist of Style and Clarity", ''[[The New York Times]]'', August 26, 1984, p.&nbsp;1.</ref><ref>{{Cite encyclopedia|title = Truman Capote|encyclopedia = Encyclopedia of World Biography|year = 2003|access-date = June 29, 2015|url = http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ca-Ch/Capote-Truman.html|publisher = Advameg, Inc.}}</ref> Just as Dill lived next door to Scout during the summer, Capote lived next door to Lee with his aunts while his mother visited New York City.<ref name="fleming">Fleming, Anne Taylor (July 9, 1976). "The Private World of Truman Capote", ''The New York Times Magazine''. p. SM6.</ref> Like Dill, Capote had an impressive imagination and a gift for fascinating stories. Both Lee and Capote loved to read, and were atypical children in some ways: Lee was a scrappy [[tomboy]] who was quick to fight, and Capote was ridiculed for his advanced vocabulary and lisp. She and Capote made up and acted out stories they wrote on an old [[Underwood Typewriter Company|Underwood]] typewriter that Lee's father gave them. They became good friends when both felt alienated from their peers; Capote called the two of them "apart people".<ref>Steinem, Gloria (November 1967). "Go Right Ahead and Ask Me Anything (And So She Did): An Interview with Truman Capote", ''[[McCall's]]'', p. 76.</ref> In 1960, Capote and Lee traveled to Kansas together to investigate the multiple murders that were the basis for Capote's [[nonfiction novel]] ''[[In Cold Blood]]''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/exclusive-read-harper-lees-profile-cold-blood-detective-al-dewey-hasnt-been-seen-more-50-years-180958957/|title=Exclusive: Read Harper Lee's Profile of "In Cold Blood" Detective Al Dewey That Hasn't Been Seen in More Than 50 Years|date=April 29, 2016|website=Smithsonian Magazine|last=Clasen|first=Sharon|publisher=Smithsonian Institution|access-date=March 22, 2017}}</ref>

Down the street from the Lees lived a family whose house was always boarded up; they served as the models for the fictional Radleys. The son of the family got into some legal trouble and the father kept him at home for 24&nbsp;years out of shame. He was hidden until virtually forgotten; he died in 1952.<ref>Hile, Kevin S. "Harper Lee" in ''Authors and Artists for Young Adults'', Gale Research '''13''' (August 1994) {{ISBN|978-0-8103-8566-5}}</ref>

The origin of Tom Robinson is less clear, although many have speculated that his character was inspired by several models. When Lee was 10&nbsp;years old, a white woman near Monroeville accused a black man named Walter Lett of raping her. The story and the trial were covered by her father's newspaper, which reported that Lett was convicted and sentenced to death. After a series of letters appeared claiming Lett had been falsely accused, his sentence was commuted to life in prison. He died there of [[tuberculosis]] in 1937.<ref name="bigg">Bigg, Matthew (July 23, 2007). "Novel Still Stirs Pride, Debate; 'Mockingbird' Draws Tourists to Town Coming to Grips With Its Past, ''[[The Washington Post]]'', p. A3.</ref> Scholars believe that Robinson's difficulties reflect the notorious case of the [[Scottsboro Boys]],<ref>Johnson, ''Boundaries'', pp. 7–11.</ref><ref>Noble, p. 13.</ref> in which nine black men were convicted of raping two white women on negligible evidence. However, in 2005, Lee stated that she had in mind something less sensational, although the Scottsboro case served "the same purpose" to display Southern [[prejudice]]s.<ref>Shields, p. 118.</ref> [[Emmett Till]], a black teenager who was murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman in [[Mississippi]] in 1955, and whose death is credited as a catalyst for the [[Civil Rights Movement]], is also considered a model for Tom.<ref name="chura">Chura, Patrick (Spring 2000). "Prolepsis and Anachronism: Emmett Till and the Historicity of To Kill a Mockingbird", ''Southern Literary Journal'' '''32''' (2), p. 1.</ref>