Mockingbird Summer

“It was part of the deal her parents had made with her after she’d begged incessantly to work behind the store’s soda fountain. Dresses were still expected for female outings, even for tomboys. Although, to feel better about the deal, Corky was secretly wearing her shorts underneath.”

Rutledge describes Corky’s character as a “tomboy” to emphasize the ways in which she already pushes back against conventional norms of traditional white femininity in the American South. Corky’s parents encourage her to wear dresses and be “ladylike,” but Corky defies social standards of femininity while also manifesting a desire to enter the workplace at early age. Corky’s perspective differs from that of her mother’s generation, signaling the socio-political shifts around Racial Justice and Women’s Rights in the 1960s.

“Although some things never change about growing up, the time in which you grow up isn’t one of them. It’s forever changing, shaping you in ways you can’t control or anticipate. As each year passes, the only wild card is you.”

Here, Rutledge reiterates the significance of the novel’s historical context in Corky’s coming-of-age journey—Growing up in the Transformative Era of the 1960s—a time of social unrest and cultural shifts that shape her community and her character. The summer of 1964 marks the start of Corky’s Developing Consciousness through Friendship and Literature as she transitions from childhood to adulthood.

“At that moment, they heard a knock on the back screen door. Standing on the steps were two slim Black women, one Belle’s age, the other only a few years older than Corky. The mother had on a flowery housedress. The daughter was wearing pedal pushers, a tucked-in blouse made from the same fabric as the mom’s housedress, along with a pair of Sunday-go-to-meeting dress shoes of her own.”

Rutledge positions Corky’s first meeting with America as a turning point in her life. The author’s description demonstrates that Corky is instantly captivated by America and observes every detail in her appearance. Corky immediately looks up to America as an older teenager girl.

“‘The whole thing’s nuts.’ He picked up another ball. ‘It’s been over thirty years since the time of the story in that book. Things should be better. Everybody’s got a right to try filling their God-given potential! Everybody!’”

Mack’s reaction to the racial discrimination America experiences positions him as an ally from the start of the narrative. As a university student in the 1960s, Mack is himself shaped by the social changes of the period. Witnessing America’s athletic talent, Mack thinks the oppression of racial hatred is outrageous and recognizes it as an unjust obstacle to Black people’s professional and personal development. Mack reads Lee’s novel himself and notes the persistence of racism despite the many decades that have passed since the 1930s in which Lee sets her story.

“If you were married, you were a housewife. ‘A woman’s place is in the home,’ the saying went. Unless, of course, your husband wasn’t a good breadwinner and you had to work to make ends meet—or unless you had the misfortune to not even have a husband. If you were single after the age of twenty, you were on the verge of being considered an old maid, so you were expected to be husband-hunting double-time. If you weren’t married by thirty, you were pretty much relegated to spinsterhood. This was the world Corky had grown up in. And the world you grow up in always feels like the way it has always been and will always be. Until it isn’t.”

Rutledge highlights the oppressive and restricted gender norms that persisted in the early 1960s alongside racial discrimination. American society of the period, dominated by white, patriarchal power structures, expected women to be housewives and mothers, confining them to the domestic realm. Corky sees those gender standards reflected in her mother’s life. However, as the socio-political movements of the period become prominent in the narrative, Belle’s social consciousness and desire for change also begins to expand.

“On the other side of the railroad tracks, America looked back. Watching Corky enter the drugstore and Corky’s brother and dog drive away, she paused a moment to consider all the things that had occurred since yesterday. Something new was happening, different than ever before, and she wasn’t sure what to make of it.”

Rutledge shifts to America’s point of view to reveal her perspective on the events unfolding in the novel. America passes her day practicing with the all-white girls’ softball team, and after Mack drives her home, she feels perplexed that something “new” and different is happening in her life. While Rutledge’s narrative focuses primarily on Corky’s transformation, the brief shifts in perspective suggest that America also feels the effects of a changing world around her. Even as America’s perspective evokes the idea of something new in the air, the symbol of the railroad tracks highlights the ongoing racial divide in High Cotton and its legacy of racism that won’t go down without a fight.

“Turning south at Corky’s street, they bumped over the railroad track, and Corky felt a new, strange sensation, as if she were doing something forbidden. Because she was. Not once had her parents ever taken her across the tracks. Southsiders were always coming over to the Northside to work or shop, but while it was never said out loud, Northsiders weren’t all that welcome on the Southside. Corky strained, trying not to miss anything, and immediately noticed differences.”

Corky’s arc progresses as she violates the segregation laws of High Cotton and visits Southside for the first time, highlighting the novel’s thematic interest in Developing Consciousness Through Friendship and Literature. The Southside excites her curiosity since she’s never been allowed beyond the tracks. Corky’s perspective establishes the white community’s ignorance about Black lives and culture.

“She was sixteen, no longer naïve, and less so every day. Despite her parents shielding her from the worst as best they could, she knew about the past, the centuries-long struggle of people that looked like she did, which included the dread that made her drop the library book. Plus, it was impossible not to know what was happening across the country the last few years, what with the marches and the sit-ins and all. It was just somehow harder when a book, something you love and covet and admire, throws you, on the strength of words alone, into a dangerous past world—one in some ways not past at all—stirring up roiling emotions and fears you cannot handle all at once.”

The text explores the contrasting worldviews of Corky and America through their different reactions to To Kill a Mockingbird. The two girls share a love for literature, but each perceives Lee’s novel differently. While Corky sees the novel as an informative and illuminating read about racism, America finds the novel painful and traumatizing, reminding her of her people’s long oppression and struggle for freedom. Their different reads also demonstrate their character differences. Corky’s privilege shields her from the reality of racism and its pervasive impact, while America can’t be shielded from it despite her young age.

“There is a young moment when the world can suddenly reveal that it doesn’t revolve around you. This was Corky’s moment. Grasping in inches the concept of what she’d one day know as empathy, Corky began to understand why America was upset. She glanced toward her house, thinking of the old photographs of her parents hanging along the front staircase, ones she’d passed her entire life without a thought. Now she wondered about their stories. […] Corky took a deep breath. Everybody’s got their own story, she realized as she locked eyes with the driver of a passing car…and they’re swirling around me every moment of every day. All she had to do was be open to seeing them.”

Rutledge’s narrative emphasizes the importance of storytelling in developing compassion and empathy. As America confronts Corky about the novel, Corky begins to understand their different perspectives. She realizes that her own experiences differ from her friend’s, and that the white lens on the world is not universal. Corky’s arc moves her from an ignorant and self-centered perspective to a place of growing understanding and empathy. Her friendship with America advances her growth as she becomes interested to see the world through the eyes of those around her whose experiences are different from her own.

“Dogs have always had a world of their own. But in a time and place with no leash laws, like 1964 High Cotton, their world could be as big as they wanted it to be. Any time could seem a good time to trot around the neighborhood to meet and greet their fellow residents, be they canine, feline, or human. So, the next morning, Roy Rogers woke up at dawn.”

Rutledge devotes a chapter to the perspective of Corky’s dog. The dog’s name, Roy Rogers, functions as a personification, ascribing human characteristics to him to contrast the perspectives of animals and humans. While the human residents of High Cotton live under restrictive and discriminatory Jim Crow laws, Roy Rogers remains free to roam around town, moving freely between the Northside and the Southside, without care for divisive racial lines. Roy feels disturbed when he senses human anger and rage, emphasizing that something is wrong in High Cotton.

“The next day, Belle stood staring out the kitchen window lost in thought, as had become her habit the last few months. The dishes had long been washed, but with a dish towel still in hand, her mind was on her ‘discussions’ with Cal. She was feeling a certain restlessness again, the odd sensation she’d been experiencing for a while. How could she make her husband understand if she didn’t? It was a problem that seemed to have no name. She had everything she’d always wanted, a beautiful family, a good husband, no financial worries. Yet at this point in her life, something felt missing.”

The above passage illustrates the progressive expansion of Belle’s social and political consciousness. Throughout her life, Belle has been confined to the domestic sphere, adhering to white Southern standards of womanhood. But social changes around her impact Belle’s thinking. She clashes with her husband over her right to work, reflecting the feminist discourse of the early 1960s, expecting that the civil rights movement extends to women’s rights, and characterizing gender discrimination as an issue with “no name.” Belle stands in contrast to Evangeline, who, as a Black woman whose husband has lost his job, needs to work to provide for her daughter, underscoring the differences in resources, opportunities for financial security, and social power between Black women and white women. Despite her financial security and privilege, domesticity makes Belle feel incomplete.

“But as Cal Sr. and a hangdog Cal Jr. came closer, Cal Sr. stopped to stare at Willy, who was staring back curiously at them. And, without explanation, Cal Sr. turned around and headed back to the house, defying Hiram Tilton’s edict to punish his Northside boy for playing with Southside boys. In that moment, the law of the heart had won out over the Jim Crow law of the land.”

The passage illuminates the inner reckoning with High Cotton’s racial divide experienced by three Corcoran family generations—Corky’s grandfather (Papa Cal), her father (Cal), and herself. Although Papa Cal has supported Jim Crow laws throughout his life, and Cal resists change, believing that the divide preserves peace in the community, both men are forced to confront the injustice of the town’s long legacy of racism. Both men transgress segregation laws when forced into a decision, demonstrating their ambivalence. Papa Cal found he couldn’t go through with punishing his son for playing baseball with Black children on the Southside after seeing his friend Willy—a Black man—nearby, positioning himself in defiance of racist imperatives.

“And that was Noah IV’s truth. Learning nothing on his own, Noah Boatwright IV had inherited his forefathers’ values as much as their property, having been given everything and believing he deserved it all. But something deep inside made him suspect he had no real power anymore in ‘his’ town, not even the reverent respect the Boatwright name had always elicited. Now that all the land was sold except for the mansion, the only thing he had left was money. And the money, to his surprise, wasn’t enough. ‘I have power! I do!’ he roared. ‘And I’ll prove it.’ Grabbing his Cadillac keys, he headed out the front door, calling back, ‘I’m going to stop this right now!’”

Rutledge positions Noah IV as representative of institutionalized power determined to self-protect and self-perpetuate. The Boatwrights are the richest family in High Cotton, a town founded by their patriarch who owned a post–Civil War cotton plantation. The Boatwrights embody a legacy of oppressive authority in High Cotton that derives its power from racist ideology, policy, and social norms. Although Noah IV has inherited a large fortune, his true goal is power. He feels that racial integration threatens the power and authority his wealth and name afford him, and he works to prevent America from playing in the softball team to reify white supremist systems of power.

“Corky began to run again, hoping she could catch them all before they crossed the highway and the tracks. She tried calling to them, but being too close to the highway, the passing cars drowned her out. All she could do was watch them cross. There went Roy as if he’d done it a hundred times before, and, for all Corky knew, he had. So, going against parental and community norms, Corky crossed the highway and railroad tracks.”

The crossing of the railroad tracks signals a key moment in Corky’s coming-of-age arc. Corky’s desire to apologize to America for her ignorant behavior and connect with her friend compels her to ignore the will of her parents and the laws of her town, demonstrating her emerging maturity and autonomy as well as her developing consciousness.

“‘It’s all kinds of things at once,’ she began. She looked past Corky. ‘It feels like…like I can move as fast as the world is turning and I can feel it through my toes…Yet it’s also like I’m somehow stopping time and I’m the only thing moving and any moment I could lift off like a bird, as if I’ve got wings on my feet […] And inside me, the whole time,’ America went on, the smile broader, dreamier, ‘I feel this huge, blessed bliss…like…like…at any moment I just might burst into some kind of Almighty glory.’”

America’s description of her feelings about running underscore her desire for freedom—a freedom denied to her by oppressive systems of power. Running fast isn’t an achievement for America but a natural physical inclination. While running, she forgets the oppression society imposes upon her. The metaphor of the “bird” connects her sense of freedom to “flying,” emphasizing the larger struggle for Racial Justice and Women’s Rights in the 1960s.

“On the way home, Corky kept thinking about Bubba and Tad and other people in her High Cotton world she thought she knew. She’d just stopped being friends with a boy she’d known and liked her entire life. At the very same time, she’d hurt a girl she hoped to have as a friend for the rest of her life. The dynamics of what had just happened were far beyond her experience to handle. If she didn’t know Tad Boatwright, what did she know? And what did she know if she didn’t know herself?”

Rutledge’s narrative establishes that Corky’s journey toward a deeper social consciousness and understanding is imperfect and fraught with mistakes. Even as Corky inwardly denounces the expression of racial hate when Bubba calls America slurs, she instinctually steps away from America, instantly regretting it. The incident marks another lesson for Corky, forcing her to reckon with the pervasiveness of racial prejudice in white society and the implicit bias she herself carries. Corky understands that she does not know herself as well as she thinks. The realization moves her to break ties with her former friends and embrace her new friendship with America.

“‘Papà said he was already a cowboy working with livestock all through the Civil War right up to Juneteenth,’ she said, referring to the day Union troops landed in Galveston to read the Emancipation Proclamation, ending slavery. ‘After that, being a freeman, he’d just kept on cowboying. Papà said the Chisholm Trail opened about that time, and it had lots of Black cowboys driving cattle up to Kansas. My great-grandpapà did it most of his life, he said, and even got good at rodeoing, too. So, I just wanted to feel what it was like.”

Rutledge reveals part of America’s ancestral history and establishes her bond with Corky through her willingness to share that part of her life with her friend. America’s reference to her grandfather allows Rutledge to make note of the many Black cowboys in the 19th century. America’s vulnerability with Corky encourages reciprocity and sharing between them.

“She remembered how the news film showed the gathering White crowd pushing against both the Black and White college students sitting calmly on the stools. She remembered how the mob started dumping drinks on the students’ heads and laughing as others covered them with mustard and ketchup. And she remembered how things suddenly turned violent as the students were attacked, some pulled down to the floor and beaten, the mob taking jars off the shelves to pummel them. She even remembered a guy burning a female student on her arm with a cigarette and laughing while he was doing it. Corky was twelve when she first saw the original version on the TV a year ago, and she couldn’t unsee it, even after her mother had quickly turned off the set.”

Rutledge positions the sit-in protest at the drugstore as a crucial moment in Corky’s development—her first personal experience of a civil rights protest, an event she’s previously only seen on television. Seeing the enraged reaction of Noah IV during the protest, she understands that racial violence is a result of white rage.

“The reporter came through the doors and straight up to Corky. ‘Hey, kid. Tell me what happened.’ So, she did. But, to her surprise, he asked more questions. A whole lot more. […] ‘You sure ask a lot of questions. I’ve been told not to because it’s irritating.’ ‘Oh yeah?’ he said. ‘How else do you learn things?’ Corky grinned. Right then and there, she decided she wanted to be a reporter.”

Rutledge foreshadows Corky’s future as a journalist in her interview with the reporter covering the drugstore protest. His questions make Corky realize her own vocation, realizing the ways in which her curiosity and constant questioning about the world could be channeled into a professional calling. Her coming-of age journey advances as Corky envisions her adult life.

“It was an amazing sight. For the first time in the history of High Cotton, the citizenry of both sides of the town’s railroad tracks were in the same place, watching the same game, a situation so unheard of that some who saw it called it a bit of a miracle.”

As the novel moves toward its climax, the softball game marks a transformative moment in the lives of Corky and her family as well as the town. America’s transgressive presence on the team momentarily dismantles High Cotton’s racial divide as residents of both the Southside and the Northside attend the game for the first time. However, the hopeful event that highlights the momentum of social change gives rise to white rage and resentment that fuels the action of the climax.

“Corky yelled, stopping on the highway shoulder to watch America disappear into the dark. ‘…I’m sorry,’ she repeated under her breath. She was sorry for not telling Tommy or Mack about the strange truck. She was sorry for wanting to kiss a boy enough to hurt a friend. She was sorry for the way of the world, and for all the stupid sins of everybody in the world.”

After the two strangers on the truck assault America and shoot Mack, forcing Corky to witness racialized violence first hand, she sees the ways in which her privilege has protected her from the harsh reality of racism. Corky’s loss of innocence moves her from a place of ignorance to one of truth.

“We forget this world is fallen. We forget that it’s our duty to remember to be better, to stand up to Evil when it shows itself, even if it sometimes shows itself within our own hearts. In fact, that’s the only kind over which we really have total control, the kind within us. It’s also the kind easiest to make right.”

Pastor Pete’s final sermon extends the Christian symbolism in the text to the central themes, describing racism as “evil.” His words influence Corky’s mindset and those of the people in the town who resist Noah IV’s protests and worldview. Through Pastor Pete’s words, Corky not only identifies the evil of racism but feels empowered to stand against it.

“However, quarantined in 2020, remembering that long-ago summer, she feels more than a bit helpless. There has always been something she could do about most everything, even if it is just writing about it. After all, she’s been a journalist her entire adult life. She was also a thirteen-year-old tomboy named Corky. And she decides to do something she should have done long ago.”

In the novel’s conclusion, Rutledge connects Corky’s childhood with her future adulthood, revealing the long-term impact of the summer of 1964 on her life. Adult Corky (Kate) is a retired journalist in quarantine, and after the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, she recalls the “life-changing” summer of 1964 that still haunts her. Corky has not found closure, because she has not reconnected with America after America’s family left High Cotton. Their reunion brings the novel’s exploration of Developing Consciousness Through Friendship and Literature full circle.