The information that we obtain which is directly important to the plot is the following:
The plot is based in the city of Maycomb, a place which like the story says is "tired with time" (stuck it its ways so to speak), and in which blacks and whites were separated. Furthermore, it was a very prejudicial town in that even the white families discriminated against each other just for the sake of their last names. Note how the "Ewells were considered white trash", the "Haverfords were considered jack asses" and the "Cunninghams were poor".
On top of the white on white prejudice there was the imposing white on black prejudice, since the blacks had no basic human rights.These were the days prior to MLK and Rosa Parks, and the black race was still treated as second class citizens, admittedly by many, and quite openly.
On another note, we even see prejudice in the form of Ms. Caroline, the teacher,who is repulsed by the young boy Ewell, and who herself is rejected by the rest of the town from being from North Alabama, which is a town of "peculiarities".
Concisely, the first part of the novel shows us a place in which nobody is safe from criticism, pressure, dislike, prejudice, hatred, stereotyping, and disdain. For this reason, Robinson's trial was all the more poginant, and all the more scandalous and powerful. It was like exploding a bomb in an already burning town.
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