“She was white, and she tempted a Negro. She did something that in our society is unspeakable: she kissed a black man. Not an old Uncle, but a strong young Negro man. No code mattered to her before she broke it, but it came crashing down on her afterwards.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 20. Atticus to the jury. Mayella Ewell broke Maycomb’s rigid social code, which says that a white woman must not kiss a black man. But rather than accept this some prefer to believe that the black man raped the white woman.