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Essay about the role of rosa park in civil rights movement
Essay about the role of rosa park in civil rights movement
Essay about the role of rosa park in civil rights movement
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Martin Luther King’s initial purpose of using non-violent strategy was against American despotism regime for segregating African Americans. On December 5th 1955, King gave an address for being the president of MIA (Montgomery Improvement Association) during the days of Montgomery Bus Boycott at the Holt Street Baptist Church (Carson, 13). The main reason of this speech is to discuss the Montgomery bus boycott whether it should be continue or not. On December 1st 1955, a woman called Rosa Parks was arrested and asked to pay for the fine because she refused to give up her seat at the front of the bus when black section was full after she got off from work (Sanders, 3). In the speech, he described how African Americans were mistreated
and the civil disobedience of Rosa Parks, and he also justified the nonviolent protest by demonstrating to African American Christian faith in love and justice and the American democratic tradition of legal protest. This speech’s target audience is African American and he employed rhetorical devices to motivate and courage African Americans to act positively in this bus boycott. “ We believe in the Christian religion, We believe in the teachings of Jesus. (Well) The only weapon that we have in our hands this evening is the weapon of protest” (Holt, 17). King linked his non-violent ideology with biblical imagery. And then, he explained this tool against segregation in details, “ we must keep God in the forefront. Let us be Christian in all of our actions… … love is one of the pivotal points of the Christian faith” (Holt, 33). This is early stereotype of his non-violent tactics and MLK always made it clear that he was an advocate of non-violence. In the last paragraph of his speech, “a people who had the moral courage to stand up for their rights,” he reaffirmed that African American would use non-violent ways to obtain their rights during this protest (Holt, 37).
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested on April 12, 1963, in Birmingham, for having a protest without a proper permit. On the exact day King was arrested, eight clergymen from Alabama wrote a letter called “A Call for Unity.” The letter called for termination of civil activities and demonstrations and designated King an “outsider” and saying that outsiders were the problems in Birmingham and not the blacks that are from there. On April 16 King wrote “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, which was his responds to his fellow clergymen. He wrote the letter as a means to convince the clergymen and the white moderate that the nonviolent demonstrations that had got him arrested, were a necessity and to enlighten them on why the segregation laws in the southern states needed to be changed. In “Letter from Birmingham Jail” King uses logos, pathos, and ethos to persuade the clergymen and convince them in assisting him in putting an end to segregation laws of blacks in Birmingham, Alabama.
Many students generally only learn of Dr. King’s success, and rarely ever of his failures, but Colaiaco shows of the failures of Dr. King once he started moving farther North. In the book, Colaiaco presents the successes that Dr. King has achieved throughout his work for Civil Rights. The beginning of Dr. King’s nonviolent civil rights movement started in Montgomery, Alabama, when Rosa Parks refused to move for a white person, violating the city’s transportation rules. After Parks was convicted, Dr. King, who was 26 at the time, was elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). “For 381 days, thousands of blacks walked to work, some as many as 12 miles a day, rather than continue to submit to segregated public transportation” (18).
In late 1955, Dr. King was elected to lead his first public peaceful protest. For the rest of the year and throughout all of 1956, African Americans decided to boycott the Montgomery bus system in response to the arrest of Rosa Parks. After 382 days of protest, the city of Montgomery was forced to lift the law mandating segregated public transportation because of the large financial losses they suffered from the protest. King began to receive notice on a national level in 1960. On October ...
talks about how African Americans in the South were being arrested and publicly chastened by the police force for their nonviolent protests. But, he extols these protests because of what they stand for. He says they “…preserve the evil system of segregation…I wish you had commended the Negro demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer, and their amazing discipline in the midst of the most inhuman provocation” (94). Because these people were aiming to end the discrimination they were facing, and did this in a peaceful manner that respected their Judeo-Christian values that all men are created equal, King saw it as exactly what this oppressed group needed. They needed a push of confidence to know that they were being treated unjustly, and that they did have the power to stand up to
Non-violent direct action and respectful disagreement are a form of civil disobedience. Martin Luther King, Jr. defines “civil disobedience” as a way to show others what to do when a law is unjust and unreasonable. King is most famous for his role in leading the African American Civil Rights Movement and using non-violent civil disobedience to promote his beliefs. King also firmly believed that civil disobedience was the way to defeat racial segregation against African Americans. While leading a protest march on the streets, King was arrested and sent to jail. In response to his imprisonment and an article he read while there, King wrote Letter from Birmingham Jail, explaining that an injustice affects everyone and listed his own criteria for
In today’s world, social justice, otherwise known as equality and egalitarianism between the races, genders, and religions, is highly sought after. In addition to modern struggles, many movements throughout the course of history that date from even before the 1930s until just recently have been started to demand equal rights for certain ethnic groups. Coretta Scott King’s memoir, Montgomery Boycott gives the reader an inside view of Martin Luther King’s personal life during the Montgomery City Bus Line boycott for impartiality in public transportation after Rosa Parks’ famous arrest. In the book, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, she discusses how the Southern population in the 1930s allowed racism and the Jim Crow Laws to become socially
Sparked by the arrest of Rosa Parks in 1955, the Montgomery Bus Boycott was a political and social protest campaign that aimed for the desegregation of the bus systems in Montgomery, Alabama.[i] The organization revolved around the emerging civil rights leader and pastor Martin Luther King Jr. Three years later, King’s method of non-violent protests would inspire four students to begin the Greensboro sit-ins in North Carolina, which is regarded as one of the most significant demonstrations at the time.[ii] Many of the discriminatory practices during this time period stems from whiteness, which is a belief about entitlement and ownership for whites based solely on their skin color. The media utilizes rhetorical devices, such as analogy, polarizing
After Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger, king wanted to end the humiliating treatment of blacks on city bus liners. He decided to start the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which lasted 382 days. Eventually, the U.S. Supreme Court declared Montgomery bus segregation laws illegal. King showed great inspiration despite receiving several threatening phone calls, being arrested and having his house being bombed, he still firmly believed in nonviolence. The boycott was the first step to end segregation, king displayed great leadership and educated the whole nation that nonviolence was the best possible was to end a problem, even if it took a while for people to notice your protest.
In Birmingham, Ala., in the spring of 1963, King's campaign to end segregation at lunch counters and segregated hiring practices drew nationwide attention when police turned attacks dogs and fire hoses on peaceful demonstrators. King was jailed along with a large number of his supporters, including hundreds of schoolchildren. When white clergy, strongly opposed to Kings position on nonviolent passive resistance, issued a statement urging the blacks not to support the demonstrations, King penned a letter of remarkable eloquence which spelled out his philosophy of nonviolence disobedience. In “Letter From Birmingham Jail”, King expresses his extreme disappointment over the criticism of his leadership by Alabama clergymen, his understanding of why oppressed people must resist their oppression, and his deep faith in the fundamental decency of all Americans.
Persuasion Throughout history there have been many struggles for freedom and equality. There was the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr. There was the fight against government censorship in Argentina, spoken against by Luisa Valenzuela. And there was the struggle for women's equality in politics, aided by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
(Ansbro, 231) instead of promoting love and violence among all races. King’s purpose in promoting nonviolence direct action was to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiations. He felt that practicing nonviolence would portray his followers as moral beings while making apparent the brutality of the segregationists. King’s preaching of nonviolence was monumental in succeeding in demonstrations such as the Montgomery bus boycott and the desegregation of public schools. King’s reaching of nonviolent direct action furthers the arguments that King is the most influential person of the twentieth century.
Martin Luther King, Jr. advocated nonviolence to suppress oppression in his essay, “The Power of Nonviolent Action.” King's factual and reasoned approach is intended to win his adversaries over by appealing to their consciences. King realized that the best strategy to liberate African-Americans and gain them justice was to use nonviolent forms of resistance. He wanted to eliminate the use of violence as a means to manage and establish cooperative ways of interacting. Moreover, King states that the “oppressed people must organize themselves into a militant and nonviolent mass movement” in order to achieve the goal of integration. The oppressed must “convince the oppressors that all he seeks is justice, for both himself and the white man” (King, 345). Furthermore, King agreed with Gandhi that if a law is unjust, it is the duty of the oppressed to break the law, and do what they believe to be right. Once a law is broken, the person must be willing to accept the ...
Over the course of his life, Dr. King would lead and participate in multiple non-violent protests against segregation. On the first of December, 1955, the arrest of Rosa Parks in Montgomery, Alabama would trigger the first of many protests led by King. The Montgomery bus boycott would last for 385 days and was so tense that King’s house was bombed. He was later arrested and released after the United States District Courts ruled that segregation on all Montgomery public buses was illegal. This paved the way for King to lead many more protests in his life and becoming a major leader in the desegregation movement.
Throughout Thoreau’s essay, he expressed his opinions and beliefs on the importance of civil disobedience in a society. He talked about how one must use his or her moral sense, conscience, to decide what is just and unjust. From here, Thoreau urged his readers to take action, to stop the machine from continuing its lifeless duty. His call to action is if a system is prone to corruption, the people must disobey it. This means that personal endangerment may be needed to do what is right. Going against the status quo to uphold justice and ethics is the basic message behind Thoreau’s essay.
Throughout his education, Martin Luther King Jr. tried to find a way to demonstrate his belief of racial equality with the most effective means possible. He quickly realized that the best strategy to end segregation was to use nonviolent forms of protest. At Crozer, Morehouse and Boston University, he studied the teaching of Mohandas Gandhi, who used nonviolent methods to help India claim its independence from Britain. King read several books on the ideas of Gandhi, and eventually became convinced that his methods could be employed by African Americans to obtain equality in America. King knew that any violence on the part of African Americans would lead to violent responses from segregationists, which would lead to injury or maybe even death for his followers. He had to teach his followers not to respond violently to cruel attacks from segregationists. King decided to sponsor workshops to train African Americans in nonviolent beh...