To Kill a Mockingbird and Civil Rights - The mid-1960s

The following text is excerpted from The Big Read's Reader's Guide on To Kill a Mockingbird, reprinted courtesy of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of 1964, enforcing the constitutional right to vote.

Malcolm X is assassinated in 1965.

Despite rumors of a second Southern novel, Lee never finishes another book.

This text is excerpted from The Big Read's Reader's Guide on To Kill a Mockingbird, reprinted courtesy of the National Endowment for the Arts.