TKAM Chapter 21

  Calpurnia takes the children home for dinner when Atticus told her to, and that the children can come back once they'd finished dinner to hear the verdict. Calpurnia chastises them, mostly Jem, on their way home and while she served them their dinner. Aunt Alexandra didn't even say anything, she nearly fainted when she learned the children were at the courthouse and was hurt that they were allowed to go back and hear the verdict. They were gone for about an hour, and were surprised at how little change there was when they got back. Jem was still confident that Tom Robinson would be acquitted, but unlike Jem, Reverend Sykes understood the racism in Maycomb and had a feeling the jurors would convict Tom.
  Scout goes on to describe what everyone in the courtroom is doing while waiting for the jury to reach their verdict. 8:00 pm went by, Scout took a brief nap when it was 11:00 pm and then jerked awake. She counted heads to stay awake, remembered a thing that Jem once explained to her and toyed with the idea, but decided against it because of how tired she was. Dill was asleep, and Jem was still certain that Tom would be acquitted, because he was looking at only the evidence and nothing else, which the jury should've been doing. Mr. Heck Tate then said the jury has reached their verdict, and everyone in the courtroom goes back to their places. Scout then narrates that everything after that happened in a dreamlike quality. The jury returns, and she saw something only a lawyer's child could watch with an emotion such as dread: a jury never looks at a defendant if he or she has been convicted, and when the jury came in, none of them looked at Tom. The jury finds Tom Robinson guilty. Jem was reacting badly, Atticus said and whispered some things to the court reporter and Tom, then he left the courtroom. The whites have already left, this was entertainment to them and it was over now, they didn't care. However, the African Americans haven't left. They stood up as Atticus passed them, a show of respect for him genuinely trying to defend Tom Robinson.
  Even though there's the silver lining of that the jurors deliberated for hours, meaning that they actually talked about the case and didn't just say Tom was guilty within 5 minutes, the verdict is still really sad. The penalty for an African American being accused of raping a white woman is death. Tom is going to die for something that he obviously didn't do, and it's because of  the racism in Maycomb and Bob and Mayella Ewell just want to cover something up. It's also sad that the racism in Maycomb is so evident that Atticus and Reverend Sykes just knew that Tom would most likely be found guilty, but Jem being so convinced that Tom would be found not guilty just shows that racism is learned, and it says something about Jem's childhood innocence. Another thing that's sad is how Tom's trial is just entertainment for the whites, and how after the verdict was read, they just got up and left because they didn't care that a man's life is on the line. Tom's going to die and leave behind his wife and three children, too. A lot of things about this verdict is really depressing and unfair.