“If you had a clear conscience, why were you scared?”
“Like I says before, it weren’t safe for any n***** to be in a – fix like that.”
“But you weren’t in a fix – you testified that you were resisting Miss Ewell. Were you so scared that she’d hurt you, you ran, a big buck like you?”
“No suh, I’s scared I’d be in court, just like I am now.”
“Scared of arrest, scared you’d have to face up to what you did?”
“No suh, scared I’d hafta face up to what I didn’t do.”
– Harper Lee
To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 19. Prosecutor Horace Gilmer questions Tom Robinson on the witness stand. While Gilmer is trying to suggest that Tom didn’t have any reason to be scared if he wasn’t doing anything wrong, the fact that Tom ends up on trial shows his fears were well-founded. Because of Maycomb’s prejudices black people have a whole other set of fears in addition to those of white people.