Who does Atticus defend?

Atticus Finch defends Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird.

Tom Robinson is a Black man in Maycomb who is accused of raping Mayella Ewell, Bob Ewell’s daughter. Atticus is appointed by the court to defend him, and he takes the case seriously even though many white people in Maycomb criticize him for it. At the trial, Atticus argues that Tom could not have beaten and choked Mayella because Tom’s left arm is useless from an old cotton-gin injury. He also suggests that Bob Ewell, who is left-handed, beat Mayella after seeing her touch Tom.

Atticus’s defense of Tom becomes one of the main conflicts in To Kill a Mockingbird, because it exposes how deeply racism shapes Maycomb’s ideas of justice.