It's a book many high schools still require in their curriculum. "To Kill a Mockingbird" has been in print for 50 years this month. YNN's Joleene Des Rosiers talks to an attorney and an English teacher about the powerful messages the book, set in the Deep South in the 1930s, still delivers today.

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SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- "I could shoot all the blue jays I wanted. If I could hit 'em. But to remember it was a sin to kill a mockingbird..."

The words of Atticus Finch to his children.

Remember that book you were required to read in high school? Fifty years later, it's still on the list. And 50 years later, its primary message is still very real.

"One of the biggest things with the book, 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' is obviously the racial inequality," said Nottingham High English teacher Anne Daviau.

Daviau can relate to the book herself and to the most popular character likely ever written in pages.

"I lived in my own little shell and I didn't realize how unfair and how there was so much inequality in the world until I read this book. And I really connected with Scout. I was a tomboy myself!" Daviau said.

The story, seen through the eyes of six-year-old Scout Finch, brings to the surface issues that are still very real today. Lessons on courage, judgment and even more loudly, prejudice are timeless, despite the book being released in 1960. And the heart of the story takes place in the courtroom after a local townswoman accuses an African American man of raping her.

"When Atticus cross examines Mayella, he basically, you know, reveals her as a fraud and in response to his cross examination, she becomes so frustrated and so angry at him that she says, 'I'm not answering anymore questions,'" said John P. Gross Jr., a Practitioner-in-Residence at Syracuse University's College of Law.

"...and if you fine, fancy gentlemen aint gonna do nothin' about it, then you're just a bunch of lousy, yella, stinkin' cowards!" Mayella, the alleged victim says to the jury.

Tom Robinson is innocent. And Atticus Finch, touted as a hero by bookworms all over the world, knows he's fighting a losing battle.

"Whatever you might think of lawyers and whatever, you might think of defense attorneys in particular, Atticus Finch is somebody that's put up on a pedestal. He's seen as noble and honest and he's really fighting the good fight," Gross said. "If you put me in that situation in that time or place, I don't know if I would be that brave or courageous."

This page-turner may be five decades old, but age means nothing when it comes to prejudice, injustice and courage.

"I think that there's so many issues in the book that are still happening in our world today," Daviau said.