‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ actor calls on youth to take action
Mary Badham tells Darlington students the country has failed to fully grasp the message of Harper Lee’s classic book.
As a 10-year-old, did Mary Badham realize the social relevance of Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” as she portrayed Scout in the film adaptation? “No,” she said, “I was this little dumb kid from Birmingham, Alabama.”
But as a 65-year-old speaking at Darlington School Wednesday, Badham addressed the message in Lee’s classic and attacked its antithesis she now sees as pervading the White House.
“People in D.C. right now would like to see those days brought back,” she said, those days where a black man in Alabama could have been dragged through
the streets and beaten to death for looking her in the face. “I don’t want to go backwards in time.”
From the podium at the front of Morris Chapel, Badham sought to stir in students a desire for action and participation in this still young American experiment, or risk its unraveling, she said.
“We have to fight again or this country will be torn into pieces,” she said, adding the book she helped bring to life in black and white is alive now and it must be present in the minds of youths. “It’s the person inside who counts.”
Badham galvanized students into a collective chant, repeating “ignorance is the root of all evil.”
“Education is the key to freedom,” she continued, describing the essence of her beliefs while prodding students to embrace intellectual discussions, absorb their teachers’ lessons and read books.
“Just because it’s on the internet doesn’t make it so.”
Admittedly, Badham said she did not pick up the book until later in life, after being asked by an English teacher while visiting his class what her favorite chapter was. She did not have an answer for him and, upon being given her informal assignment, she went home and read it.
She spoke of finding strong role models — “find your own Atticus” — lousy movies, the downside of fame, the fitness of former President Barack Obama and making it on your own.
Replying to a question about sexual harassment in Hollywood and if it was present during her time, Badham said “the casting couch was no joke,” for both actresses and actors.
At 14, a man who’d taken over for her manager had taken her to a nightclub, where the son of a famous singer came on to her but nothing happened, she said. In another incident, the manager replacement had pulled her onto his lap but couldn’t go any further due to her caretaker coming downstairs and telling him to get out.
“I was very lucky,” she said. “It’s a tough business. The predators are out there.”
When the little voice in your head is saying “no,” Badham told students, take it as a sign and get out of there.
“It will save your life,” she said.