<P> The novel is cited as a factor in the success of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, however, in that it "arrived at the right moment to help the South and the nation grapple with the racial tensions (of) the accelerating civil rights movement". Its publication is so closely associated with the Civil Rights Movement that many studies of the book and biographies of Harper Lee include descriptions of important moments in the movement, despite the fact that she had no direct involvement in any of them . Civil Rights leader Andrew Young comments that part of the book's effectiveness is that it "inspires hope in the midst of chaos and confusion" and by using racial epithets portrays the reality of the times in which it was set . Young views the novel as "an act of humanity" in showing the possibility of people rising above their prejudices . Alabama author Mark Childress compares it to the impact of Uncle Tom's Cabin, a book that is popularly implicated in starting the U.S. Civil War . Childress states the novel "gives white Southerners a way to understand the racism that they've been brought up with and to find another way . And most white people in the South were good people . Most white people in the South were not throwing bombs and causing havoc...I think the book really helped them come to understand what was wrong with the system in the way that any number of treatises could never do, because it was popular art, because it was told from a child's point of view ." </P> <P> Diane McWhorter, Pulitzer Prize - winning historian of the Birmingham civil rights campaign, asserts that To Kill a Mockingbird condemns racism instead of racists, and states that every child in the South has moments of racial cognitive dissonance when they are faced with the harsh reality of inequality . This feeling causes them to question the beliefs with which they have been raised, which for many children is what the novel does . McWhorter writes of Lee, "for a white person from the South to write a book like this in the late 1950s is really unusual--by its very existence an act of protest ." Author James McBride calls Lee brilliant but stops short of calling her brave: "I think by calling Harper Lee brave you kind of absolve yourself of your own racism...She certainly set the standards in terms of how these issues need to be discussed, but in many ways I feel...the moral bar's been lowered . And that's really distressing . We need a thousand Atticus Finches ." McBride, however, defends the book's sentimentality, and the way Lee approaches the story with "honesty and integrity". </P> <P> During the years immediately following the novel's publication, Harper Lee enjoyed the attention its popularity garnered her, granting interviews, visiting schools, and attending events honoring the book . In 1961, when To Kill a Mockingbird was in its 41st week on the bestseller list, it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, stunning Lee . It also won the Brotherhood Award of the National Conference of Christians and Jews in the same year, and the Paperback of the Year award from Bestsellers magazine in 1962 . Starting in 1964, Lee began to turn down interviews, complaining that the questions were monotonous, and grew concerned that attention she received bordered on the kind of publicity celebrities sought . Since then, she declined talking with reporters about the book . She also steadfastly refused to provide an introduction, writing in 1995: "Introductions inhibit pleasure, they kill the joy of anticipation, they frustrate curiosity . The only good thing about Introductions is that in some cases they delay the dose to come . Mockingbird still says what it has to say; it has managed to survive the years without preamble ." </P> <P> In 2001, Lee was inducted into the Alabama Academy of Honor . In the same year, Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley initiated a reading program throughout the city's libraries, and chose his favorite book, To Kill a Mockingbird, as the first title of the One City, One Book program . Lee declared that "there is no greater honor the novel could receive". By 2004, the novel had been chosen by 25 communities for variations of the citywide reading program, more than any other novel . David Kipen of the National Endowment of the Arts, who supervised The Big Read, states "people just seem to connect with it . It dredges up things in their own lives, their interactions across racial lines, legal encounters, and childhood . It's just this skeleton key to so many different parts of people's lives, and they cherish it ." </P>

Why did they name the book to kill a mockingbird