State Abitur Hessen 2018-2020, Central Abitur Niedersachsen 2018 and 2019. "To Kill A Mockingbird" was published in 1960 at the height of the American civil rights movement, capturing the spirit of the time. This coming-of-age novel quickly became a bestseller, exposing the racist bigotry of the Southern states from the perspective of Scout, a young girl from a small town in Alabama during the Great Depression. The core of the plot revolves around the trial of a young Black man who is wrongfully accused of rape, a trial that gradually reveals both the worst and the best qualities of humanity. The novel contains numerous autobiographical and historical references. For instance, the trial in the novel was inspired by the Scottsboro Boys trials, a real miscarriage of justice in Alabama in the 1930s, involving nine Black teenagers.