Why did Harper Lee put the n-word in To Kill a Mockingbird?

was first published in

1960, four years before the Civil Rights Act, at a time when racial segregation was
still widely
enforced in Southern states and this racial slur was widely
used. In this book, 1930s Maycomb is
portrayed as a racist society, in which
such abuse would have been widespread. It is notable
that 's first objection
to 's use of the term is that it is "common." This is true in
two senses. It
is common in the sense of being vulgarnot the type of word that educated
people
care to usebut it is also common in the sense that people who do use
vulgar language use it
frequently.

When Scout asks Atticus
to elaborate later in the book (having
been told several times that he is a
"n----r-lover"), Atticus responds,

Scout, said Atticus, "n----r-lover is just one of those terms
that
dont mean anythinglike snot-nose. Its hard to explainignorant, trashy people use it
when
they think somebodys favoring Negroes over and above themselves. Its
slipped into usage with
some people like ourselves, when they want a common,
ugly term to label
somebody."

The
principal reasonuses the term is for
verisimilitude. It is the word people
would have used, and to pretend otherwise would be
untruthful. However, by
critiquing the term within the text, the author does do something toward

rendering it socially unacceptable.