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Black power movement and the fight for civil rights
American civil rights movement
African American Civil Rights Movement
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Conor Selfors 9/6/17 March Book One The March is a story about Congressman John Lewis fighting in the civil rights movement. He portrays his story in flashbacks from 2009 back to the 1950s. The novel starts of with young John Lewis leading his people across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. While the police made a barricade at the end of the bridge preventing them to get through. The police were convicting the men of assembling an unlawful assembly but, they were doing nothing wrong.
John L. Lewis was born in the town of Lucas, Iowa on February 12th, 1880. His parents are immigrants from Wales. When John was fifteen, he started working as a miner in Illinois. Between 1898 and 1907, John was voted to be a local representative to the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) in the year 1906. Lewis also tried farming, construction work, and owning a small business, before joining the labor movement in 1907. The United Mine Workers of America , aka the UMWA, later elected John as branch secretary. In 1909, he served as president of the Panama local of the United Mine Workers of America. In 1910, he would be elected as an Illinois representative on UMW's state legislature. He took a national position in the American Federation of Labor (AFL), as an organizer, in 1911. Lewis departed from the mines in the year 1911, to become an organizer for the American Federation of Labor. In 1916, Lewis was the UMWA president and appointed chief arithmetician for the union. In the year 1919, three years after his election, he became the president of the largest trade union in America in 1920. He held this position until 1960, when he retired.
Lewis Latimer was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts in 1848. He was the son of George and Rebecca Latimer, escaped slaves from Virginia. When Lewis Latimer was a boy his father George was arrested and tried as a slave fugitive. The judge ordered his return to Virginia and slavery, but the local community to pay for George Latimer’s freedom raised money. George Latimer later went underground fearing his re-enslavement, a great hardship for Lewis' family.
Labor’s rights, this issue have been bothering many worker since the 19th century and can still be a problem today. As John L. Lewis has said in his speech “I repeat that labor seeks peace and guarantees its own loyalty, but the voice of labor, insistent upon its rights, should not be annoying to the ears of justice or offensive to the conscience of the American people” (John L. Lewis), which under his words meant that labor is something that can be done right and peacefully but it needs rules and benefits that come with those rules which labor asks for and when labor asks for those rules and benefits it shouldn’t be taken like some annoying kid’s demands but more as something that needs to be done and done with a right mind set. Labor today consists of a man or woman going to work, working their hours, and finally getting paid for those hours at the end of the week, at least a minimum of $7.50 an hour (United States Department of Labor), but before it wasn’t like that before many workers would get paid very poorly even thought they would work for a lot of hours and they wouldn’t get benefits from their work or safety when working such as in the mines like the mine workers, but one man stood up for them and his name was John L. Lewis (John Llewellyn Lewis, Encyclopedia).
“As we walk, we must make a pledge that we shall always march ahead.”(MLK , I have a Dream Speech). Martin Luther King JR. was a remarkable man. He helped the community like no other did. He is a great character and role model towards all African Americans and others. He shows bravery, kindness, and has the eyes to make change happen. He was an inspiration to many less fortunate people than him, and people who had more than him. Do we have the bravery and courage that this man had? Do we have the eyes for change? MLK had something many didn’t. MLK made a change because something was bothering him in his community, he brought people together, was an inspiration to many because of his patience, and had a dream.
Martin Luther King, Jr. defines “civil disobedience” as a way to show others what to do when a law is unjust and unreasonable. As King stated in the letter from Birmingham, “Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.” When Negros were being treated unfairly, Martin Luther King, Jr. stepped in to show people how to peacefully protest and not be violent. The dictionary definition of civil disobedience is the refusal to comply with certain laws or to pay taxes and fines, as a peaceful form of political protest (Webster Dictionary). That is what Martin Luther King, Jr. did when nothing was changing in the town after the law for public school to be non-segregated. In Antigone, Creon created an edict that states that nobody could bury Polynices’s body because he was a traitor to Thebes and his family. Under Martin Luther King’s definition of an unjust and a just law, Creon’s edict is unjust and degrades Polynices’ right to be buried because of lack of information and favoritism of one brother.
Ross, S. (n.d.). Civil Rights March on Washington. Infoplease. Retrieved April 11, 2014, from http://www.infoplease.com/spot/marchonw
John Lewis was an influential SNCC leader and is recognized by most as one of the important leaders of the civil rights movement as a whole. In 1961, Lewis joined SNCC in the Freedom Rides. Riders traveled the South challenging segregation at interstate bus terminals. In 1963, when Chuck McDew stepped down as SNCC chairman, Lewis was quickly elected to take over. Lewis' experience at that point was already widely respected--he had been arrested 24 times as a result of his activism. In 1963, Lewis helped plan and took part in the March on Washington. At the age of 23, he was a keynote speaker at the historic event. He stepped down from his position in 1966. Stokeley Carmichael, a fellow Freedom Rider, was elected chairman of SNCC and soon after raised the cry of "black power." Some were alarmed by the concept of black power and many were critical of Carmichael's new approach.
Over 200,000 demonstrators participated in the March on Washington in the nation’s capital on August 28, 1963. The purpose of the march was to gain civil rights for African Americans. There was a wide diversity in those who participated, with a quarter of all the demonstrators being white (Ross). Even southern people came to contribute, which caused them to be harassed and threatened for coming to the march. The March on Washington became a very successful event for the rights of African Americans, and amended several peoples’ view-points towards the topic, even President John Kennedy’s.
One of the first major themes of the book deals with civil rights. The events that happen during this decade are what lead to the civil rights movement of the early 1960’s. Which eventually turned into the Civil Rights Act of 1965. When most people think about the civil rights, most people think of Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail, SLLC etc.
The time of 1963 was noted for intense racial unrested and civil rights demonstrations all throughout, nationwide outrage was sparked by media coverage and oil exports actings in Birmingham, Alabama, attack dogs and fire horses turned against protestors both teens and the young. Martin Luther king Jr. had been arrested and jailed during these protests when he then wrote his speech "Letter form a Birmingham Jail," advocating disobedience against unjust laws. Dozens of demonstrations took place all over the country which culminated the March on Washington, Kennedy then backed up a civil rights act and took that up until summer. Dr. Martin Luther king in the "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" (1963) argues that the protesting of segregation was
When Martin died the movement slowly died and became one of the most historical and famous groups. There were many things named after martin Luther king Jr. This movementis important to the theme [rights and responsibilities] because it talks about the hard struggles African Americans had during the 1950s-1960 to gain the civil rights that they wanted so that they wouldn’t be treated badly and segregated from the rest of the United States.
According to the march organizers, the march would symbolize their demands of “the passage of the Kennedy Administration Civil Rights Legislation without compromise of filibuster,” integration of all public schools by the end of the year, a federal program to help the unemployed, and a Federal Fair Employment Act which would ban job discrimination (“The March on Washington” 11). In order for the march not to appear as a war of white versus black it had to be racially integrated so it looked like justice versus injustice. Some organizers wanted to call for massive acts of disobedience across America, but when the Urban League and the N.A.A.C.P. joined the organization of the march, they insisted against it. The march was originally going to be on Capitol Hill to influence congress, but because of a 1882 law against demonstrating there, they decided to march to the Lincoln Memorial and invite congress to meet them there, knowing that they would not.
Enraged with the death of Jim, around 650 protestors gathered again on March 7 and attempted a march through Selma to Montgomery, ignoring Governor Wallace’s orders not to march. They again met with state troopers and a crueler response. A wall of state troopers was formed at US Highway 80 to stop the march. After refusing the orders from the police to stop the march, the troopers took action. The prot...
I stopped on the sidewalk and looked up toward the White House and then back in the other direction. Both my cousin and I hadn't expected to see anything but the usual Washington museum exhibits and eateries that day; instead we got caught up in a march that neither of us believed in and one that I wouldn't have chosen to see. The march seemed to have no beginning and no end; it seemed as though it went on for miles. I looked at the mass of people in awe, amazed that so many people could organize to fight for something they believed in. I'd never seen something of this scale and I was stunned by its mass and power.
In conclusion, the march depicts significance in Ousmane Sembene’s work because it displays strength and along with another image of black people at the time. A positive image which explains and shows how individuals are devoted and try as hard as possible to achieve a goal set in minds. Last but not least, the novel balances out as the author purposively attributed leadership status to both men and women to show equality. Nonetheless, the march further more shows enhancement in women social position and independence, and lastly gives birth to a new era when African women start to claim their place in social class.