Jester Hairston's "Mary's Boy Child"

"Long time ago in Bethlehem 

So the Holy Bible says

Mary's boy child, Jesus Christ

Was born on Christmas Day."

Jester Hairston starred in both To Kill a Mockingbird and In the Heat of the Night.  However, he is not known for these roles, but rather for a Christmas song that he wrote in 1956.  He not only acted but also wrote music.  The grandson of slaves, he desired to keep the Negro spirituals alive.  In 1956, his roommate asked him to write a song for his birthday, which he did.  The song, titled He Pone and Chocolate Tea, featured a calypso beat.  

At Christmas, the Schumann's Hollywood Choir asked him to write a Christmas song for them.  Hairston took the birthday song, changed the lyrics and re-titled it "Mary's Boy Child".  Singer Harry Belafonte asked permission to record the song on his album "An Evening with Belafonte".  The song rose to #1 on the U.K. Charts in 1957.  Mahalia Jackson also sang the song, only under the title "Mary's Little Boy Child".  To listen to the Harry Belafonte version, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY3o4_iIudg.

http://www.saviorsite.com/life-of-jesus/baby-jesus/

Mockingbird's Dill Harris Based on Truman Capote

"Mr. and Mrs. Lee, Harper Lee's mother and father, lived very near.  Harper Lee was my best friend...I'm a character in her book, which takes place in the same small town in Alabama where we lived.  Her father was a lawyer and she and I used to go to trials all the time.  We went to trials instead of going to the movies." (Truman Capote)

When I first read To Kill a Mockingbird to my Grade 10 class in Windsor, the image of Scout and Dill timidly approaching the recluse Bo Radley's house stuck in my head.  The image of Scout and Dill peeking their heads over the courthouse balcony as they watched Scout's dad defend a black man accused of rape lingered in my memory.  

In the 1920's and early 1930's, Harper Lee and Truman Capote were next door neighbours.  They developped a close relationship, spending long afternoons together.  Lee used to sneak into her lawyer father's study and sat at his typewriter as Capote dictated wildly imaginative stories.  Lee and Capote used to attend Mr. Lee's trials, the way other kids would go to the movies.   

Another pastime the friends shared was "the killing of mockingbirds", mentioned in a letter to a friend in 1955, seven years before the publication of the famous book.  The two were what Anne of Green Gables would call "kindred spirits".  Capote moved to New York; Lee later followed.  Both became writers.  Both became recluses later in life.  While Capote was a prolific writer, Lee only published one book in her lifetime (Go Set a Watchman came out posthumously).  Capote is immortalized in Lee's classic novel, a testament to a lasting friendship.

For more information, visit http://www.rjellory.com/an-interesting-slant-on-the-truman-capoteharper-lee-relationship-by-norman-mailer/.

     

Amasa Coleman Lee Inspiration for Mockingbird's Atticus Finch

"Atticus Finch was further enshrined in the cultural canon through Gregory Peck's portrayal in the Oscar winning 1962 film.  Parents named their children after him.  Law professors assigned the book in ethics class.  The Alabama Law Association erected a monument to him in Monroeville, Ms. Lee's hometown." (http://www.wsj.com/articles/harper-lees-father-the-inspiration-for-atticus-finch-changed-his-segregation-views-1436670661)

http://www.wsj.com/articles/harper-lees-father-the-inspiration-for-atticus-finch-changed-his-segregation-views-1436670661

The image of Gregory Peck's character, Atticus Finch, outside an Alabama jail, confronting an angry mob that wants to lynch the black man whom he represents, is forever etched on the memory of those who saw the movie To Kill a Mockingbird.  The scene is not that far off the mark.  In 1934, Mockingbird author Harper Lee's father, whom she based Atticus on, confronted KKK members in the street, exchanging words with the leader.

Amasa Coleman Lee, born in Alabama in 1880, attended law school and set up a practice in Monroeville.  He married Frances Finch who gave birth to Nelle Harper Lee.  Mr. Lee adored his daughter and tended to indulge her.  

Harper admired her father and the stand that he took on social issues.  IN 1919, Mr. Lee defended two black men charged with a botched robbery and murder.  Even so, the two men were convicted and hanged.  He continued to defend blacks in the 1920's and 1930's, preaching:  "Equal rights for all, special privileges for none."

However, in 1954, with the victory for civil rights in Brown vs Board of Education, Mr. Lee resisted school integration.  He was, nonetheless, part of the Deep South establishment.  Harper was disappointed that her father was agreeing with the status quo.  Her childhood view of him as this larger than life character who fought for the underdog was shattered.

However, by the late 1950's, when Harper was working on her manuscript for To Kill a Mockingbird, her father had a change of heart.  He talked about voting rights for blacks.  The book was published in 1960, selling 2.5 million copies in the first year and remaining on the bestseller list for almost two years.  

In 1962, the movie debuted in theatres.  "Atticus Finch was further enshrined in the cultural canon through Gregory Peck's portrayal in the Oscar winning 1962 film.  Parents named their children after him.  Law professors assigned the book in ethics class.  The Alabama Law Association erected a monument to him in Monroeville, Ms. Lee's hometown." 

The same year, the man who inspired the character passed away.  His daughter outlived him by decades.  Her other book, Go Set a Watchman, which shed some light on her father's initial resistance to integration, was published last month.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/11/harper-lee-my-little-sister-alice-finch-lee