'To Kill a Mockingbird' author Harper Lee dies at 89

Changing racial views

Nelle Harper Lee was born April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, the youngest of four children of A.C. and Frances Finch Lee and a descendant of Civil War General Robert E. Lee. Like Scout, Lee grew up a tomboy.

Lee had studied law at the University of Alabama but, six months before finishing her studies, she went to New York in the early 1950s to pursue a literary career while working as an airline reservation clerk.

In 1956 friends Michael and Joy Brown gave Lee a special Christmas gift, a year of financial support so she could work full time on "To Kill a Mockingbird."

An estimated 30 million copies of the book were sold. It would become required reading in many American schools but the American Library Association said it was frequently challenged by those who did not like its subject matter.

Lee also played a key role in researching another great American book by Truman Capote, her childhood friend and the inspiration for the frail, precocious Dill in "To Kill a Mockingbird."

In 1959 she accompanied Capote to Holcombe, Kansas, to work on "In Cold Blood," the chilling account of the murders of a farming family. Her mannerly, down-home approach undoubtedly smoothed the way for the flamboyant Capote.

There was speculation that Capote helped her write "To Kill a Mockingbird" but in his 2006 biography, "Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee," Charles J. Shields disputed that. He also said Lee's contribution to Capote's "In Cold Blood" was greater than believed.

Lee's sister said the authors eventually fell out because Capote was jealous of Lee's Pulitzer, which she won in 1961.

In 2006 Lee wrote a piece for O magazine about developing a childhood love of books, even though they were scarce in Monroeville.

"Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books," she wrote.