Mockingbird Summer

America, a 16-year-old Black girl who comes to work at Corky’s house with her Haitian mother, Evangeline, is a central character in Rutledge’s story whose friendship with Corky drives the narrative. Her name provides a symbolic allusion to the country’s unrealized potential due to the systemic and interpersonal oppression of the Black community. Her father, who’s lost his railroad job, is out of town for much of the novel looking for work. America’s family struggles financially and her mother must work as a caretaker for the Corcorans in order to provide for them. America’s presence catalyzes positive disruption in Corky life, pushing her toward greater social consciousness and understanding. America is a skilled runner and her athletic talent impresses Mack and Corky, who compare her to Wilma Rudolph, “the fastest woman in the world” (29). When the Baptist Pastor invites America to join the girls’ softball team, she faces her own self-protective fears and opens herself up to a new friendship with Corky.

While America connects with Corky and feels accepted by the girls on the softball team, she feels perplexed that people encourage her potential. She senses that “something new [is] happening” (47). When America reads To Kill a Mockingbird she confronts Corky about her insensitivity in giving her the book, forcing Corky to reckon with her ignorance of the realities of racism and Black community’s “centuries-long struggle” (71). America accepts Corky’s apologies for her mistakes, manifesting equal openness toward her. She asks Corky to teach her how to ride horses so she can feel connected to her grandfather who was a cowboy—an opportunity for a new stage of mutuality between them despite the fact that, ultimately, America exhibits greater prowess with the horses than Corky. Rutledge juxtaposes America’s triumph on the newly integrated softball team, in a game that draws crowds from both sides of town, with the abuse and attempted assault on America at the post-game celebration, highlighting the stakes for America and her family of participating in integration in a rural Texas town in the 1960s. America leaves town with her mother the next day, disappearing from Corky’s life. Their friendship, however, does not end as America leaves a letter for Corky in their shared copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, expressing her wish that they will someday meet again. The two friends reunite 56 years later, but Rutledge doesn’t provide any details about America’s life in the intervening years or her adult perspective on her friendship with Corky.

Mack is Corky’s older brother who returns home from his first year of university at the start of the story. Rutledge positions Mack as a helper character in Corky’s life, modeling anti-racist behavior and defending and encouraging America throughout the narrative. Mack’s dreams of a career as a baseball player cause conflict with his father, a practical business man who wants his son to have financial security. Mack supports America’s potential because he connects his own desire for personal freedom with a broader social context of civil rights activism. He tells Corky: “I hope America does play softball with your team. […] She needs to see what she can do and show everybody else. Everybody’s got a right to try filling their God-given potential” (37).

Mack further demonstrates his anti-racist perspective by encouraging Corky to keep asking questions even when her parents try to stem her curiosity about the world. He fights with Bubba Boatwright for calling America a racial slur. During the sit-in protest in the drugstore, he breaks the initial tension by sitting at the soda fountain and inviting a Black student to sit next to him. Mack also becomes a casualty of racial violence when he attempts to protect America from assault and loses sight in one eye, crushing his dreams of a career in baseball. Ultimately, Mack finds a new vocation as a history teacher.

Rutledge describes Belle, Corky’s mother, as “a true dark-haired, dark-eyed, porcelain-skinned beauty” (13). Her name, an allusion to the Southern Belle, positions her as an archetypal model of white Southern womanhood. Belle has spent most of her life as a housewife and caring mother. Corky, who has always seen Belle as “her mother at home waiting to cook her eggs” who rarely talks about herself, finds herself wanting to know more of her mother’s story as her own perspective on the world begins to expand (39). Belle reveals her dreams of traveling to faraway places and the secret passport she keeps hidden from her husband. As a teenager, Belle realized “how much bigger the world was” beyond her small hometown (122). She loves music and listens to “Claire de Lune” when she is upset. Despite her limited domestic life, the 1960s social changes influence Belle, inspiring a desire to defy conventional standards of white, middle-class womanhood and return to work, pointing to the intersection of Racial Justice and Women’s Rights in the 1960s.

Rutledge establishes Belle’s talent for marketing and fundraising, which manifests when she volunteers in the library. Belle initially clashes with her husband when she expresses her desire to get a part-time job. Cal does not understand why she wants to be a “working girl” instead of a housewife, and Belle notes that women’s oppression is “a problem that [seems] to have no name” (115). Belle defies her husband’s wishes and takes the job, but Cal’s perspective shifts after his son’s assault and the sit-in protest. He eventually makes Belle a partner in the family business and Belle takes piano lessons, creating a more expansive life for herself.