In chapter 12, Scout and Jem go to First Purchase African M.E. Church with Calpurnia, and Scout learns a number of things about the way black people live. Inside the church, there are no decorations, no hymnbooks, and no organ. The black community doesn’t need all the bells and whistles of the white churches that Scout is used to. They don’t need hymn books to praise the Lord and have faith in Him. All they need is their faith and their community to make things happen. For the black people, church has a different concept. They all help donate more than they can afford in order to support Tom Robinson’s family. Everyone pitches in.
Also, Scout learns that the majority of the people in First purchase Church do not know how to read. When Calpurnia informs Scout about how Zeebo, her eldest son was taught how to read, Scout suddenly realizes that black people are smarter than the Southerners give them credit for. Zeebo was taught to read out of a very sophisticated book, “The Blackstone Commentaries.” And through hard work, and copying a page out of the Bible each day, Zeebo becomes literate.

Scout realizes that Calpurnia leads a “modest double life” when she “talks like the rest of them.” Scout is mildly surprised when she hears Calpurnia speaking in her black dialect. The reason why she does this, as Calpurnia explains, is because if she were to talk white English to her black comrades, they would think she was trying to become one of the white folks, and that would deeply offend and aggravate them. In the same situation, if she were to speak her black dialect in front of white people, for example, the Finch household, people would derogate her and consider her uneducated. When Calpurnia is with her own people, she feels comfortable speaking in any way she wants, but Scout and Jem are not used to seeing Calpurnia mixing in with other black people.

—Connie G