There are many levels of Southern racism on display in A Time to Kill. At its worst, racism takes the form of the Ku Klux Klan’s murderous intentions. But even Jake, who is friends with Ozzie and many other black community members, casually uses the word “nigger.” Southern racism is old and persistent, at times a family tradition. Jake’s frequent requests for a change of venue for his case highlight the issue: He does not believe that Carl Lee can get a fair trial in a place where the jury is likely to be majority white. In theory, jurors deliver impartial verdicts based solely on the facts presented at trial. But skin color matters in the jury box in Clanton—and, as is also intimated, everywhere. When Jake receives an all-white jury, he worries that the case is already lost.

Despite the happy ending for Carl Lee and Jake, the novel does leave open one important note about race: When Wanda Womack asks her fellow white jurors whether they would want to kill the men who raped their own daughters, it is implied that they are all imagining, not Tonya, but white children. The idea of a white girl being raped is so intolerable that the jurors are swayed.