On the cover of To Kill A Mockingbird, there was the door of a prison cell, from the side view. Two dark-colored hands are stretched through white-painted bars, one holding the bars, the other stretched through the bars.
In my opinion, the dark-colored hands belong to a Negro prisoner, who is resigned to his fate, as he is not making any violent efforts to get out, although I suspect that he is falsely accused of a crime. This prisoner would symbolize the character Tom Robinson in the novel and is used as foreshadowing to prepare or hint at readers about the role of Tom Robinson.
On the cover, the pair of hands is viewed from the side view. This could imply that the 'common folk' - the ordinary Maycomb townsfolk - knew about the wrongful fate of the Negro prisoner in the cell, but watched indifferently from the sidelines without doing anything to help him.
Also, the bars of the prison cell was originally painted white, but some parts of the bars had been eroded by black rust. This could symbolize good and evil - one of the main themes of the novel. The bars would represent the legal and justice system - originally, they were uncorrupted and efficient, but over time, it had became corrupted and biased because of racism and prejudice. Hence, the black rust had eroded the white paint of the bars over time.
In my opinion, the cover played a major part in hinting to the readers of the contents of the book beforehand, as well as acting as a short 'summary' of themes, albeit in a symbolical way.
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