Harper Lee’s letters offer fuller view of the South’s shift during Civil Rights era

A previously undisclosed trove of letters from Harper Lee to a writer friend, JoBeth McDaniel, sheds new light on Lee’s view of the Deep South’s transition from Depression-era segregation to the Civil Rights movement. The correspondence, which covers more than two decades, finds Lee writing about growing old, her aversion to public attention and her opinions of fellow writers.

In a 1992 letter she outlined 1930s deprivations, postwar affluence and white Southerners’ response as Black neighbors sought equal treatment, writing, "Many Christians were challenged for the first time to be Christians," and adding, "What was heart-breaking was to discover that people you loved — friends, relatives, neighbors, whom you assumed were civilized, harbored the most vicious feelings." Race and justice were central to Lee’s novels, which both take place in the fictional Maycomb, modeled on her birthplace, Monroeville, Ala.

In the letters she also criticized the private segregated schools that arose after desegregation, calling them a source of "human misery," creating "a new social stigma" and "tracks dividing white from white," and said she would be writing only "as a bystander, a witness to a scene of an accident." Biographer Charles J.

Shields called the correspondence significant for broadening understanding of Lee.

Key Topics

Culture, Harper Lee, Jobeth Mcdaniel, Civil Rights Movement, Monroeville Alabama, Segregated Schools