Often times I have feared the unknown and allowed others to influence my perception of situations. For years, I let other people’s thoughts determine how I saw Jacqueline Smith, the woman who quietly protests in front of the Civil Rights Museum. It was not until August 22, 2016, that I mustered the courage to talk to what many considered, “the crazy woman in front of the museum”. Conversing with Ms. Smith not only opened my eyes to how great a role the media plays in deceiving the public, it also made me more aware of how her truth needed to be heard. Jacqueline Smith is the epitome of Memphis’ slogan, “Grit and Grind”. She has devoted a huge portion of her life to ensure that Dr. Martin Luther King’s legacy thrives. Smith does this by silently protesting across the street from the museum daily. She does not protest because she was a mistress of King or because she wants money. This is where her story gets skewed by the public. …show more content…
In fact, after talking with many classmates, I heard the words “homeless” and “crazy”, which made me extremely upset because she is a highly talented, intellectual, and dedicated human being. Her journey of protesting has not been an easy one. She has been called the mistress of King, greedy, and was even set on fire while asleep. Her sharing her story with me drove a desire to tell others about her because, I too prejudged a woman who makes history every single day and goes unnoticed and discredited.
In conclusion, I am extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to talk to Ms. Smith. While engaging in conversation I discovered that Ms. Smith is a humble woman and is also a piece of history Memphis fails to broadcast. She has sat and protested for twenty-nine years, through the harsh winters and scorching summers. Her dedication inspired me to not only tell others about her, but to make history, even if it goes
...at his story had to be told to the world so that her son would not die in vain. In conclusion, Mamie Till eloquently summed up the importance of her son’s moment in history by saying, “Emmett was the catalyst that started the Civil Rights movement. Because when people saw what had happened to this little 14 year old boy, they knew that not only were black men in danger but black children as well. And it took something to stir the people up and let them know that either we are going to stand together or we are going to fall together. I do know that without the shedding of blood there is no redemption” (The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till). The media gave unprecedented coverage to the Emmett Till murder, funeral and trial. They reported it with a passion. The media’s drive share this story ultimately made a permanent change in our country’s attitude toward racism.
Angelina Grimke and Sojourner Truth were both prominent American civil rights activists of the 19th century who focused on the abolition of slavery and women’s rights issues, respectively. While both of these women challenged the societal beliefs of the United States at the time regarding these civil rights issues, the rhetorical strategies used by each of these women to not only illustrate their respective arguments but also to raise social awareness of these issues was approached in very different fashions. Angelina Grimke promoted the use of white middle-class women’s positions in the household to try to influence the decision makers, or men, around them. On the other hand, Sojourner Truth, a former slave turned women’s rights activist,
She then immediately follows up with a way to fix it and demand respect. Shes trying to connect with the audience and shows that she has been in the same place, that she can relate. You can see that she has done her research, she uses plenty of statistics to give you a visual of what she is talking about as well as quoting people from organizations and giving them the appropriate credit. She mentions in 2005 at yale, her alma mater, 15 students sat in the admissions office until they were removed by police. These individuals were demanding changes to the financial aid policy. What those student did actually changed the policy and made it easier for families to afford college without heavy loans. This showed others that activists can make a difference, something she presses on in this
Anne Moody’s memoir, Coming of Age in Mississippi, is an influential insight into the existence of a young girl growing up in the South during the Civil-Rights Movement. Moody’s book records her coming of age as a woman, and possibly more significantly, it chronicles her coming of age as a politically active Negro woman. She is faced with countless problems dealing with the racism and threat of the South as a poor African American female. Her childhood and early years in school set up groundwork for her racial consciousness. Moody assembled that foundation as she went to college and scatter the seeds of political activism. During her later years in college, Moody became active in numerous organizations devoted to creating changes to the civil rights of her people. These actions ultimately led to her disillusionment with the success of the movement, despite her constant action. These factors have contributed in shaping her attitude towards race and her skepticism about fundamental change in society.
My favorite person in the world—well, besides my mother and my grandmother—has to be Michael Jackson. I wrote this piece, Michael, They Disturbed The Peace, partially as an ode to some of his most profound works. I was also inspired by For Assata from Audre Lorde’s The Black Unicorn, and wrote this as a decidedly less personal take on the status of the black plight in America. Recently, a meetup was held in Washington D.C. to discuss black missing persons cases. Unfortunately, the only people who turned up to this meeting were other black people. This sick irony in so many nonblack “allies” not showing up for our issues, but black people showing up—in droves—for events organized by white people seeped its way into Black Twitter. At its core,
John Lewis is an African American man born on February 21st, 1940, into a sharecropping family in Pike County, Alabama (Moye, 2004). He grew up on his family's farm, and attended segregated public schools as a child. Even when he was just a young boy, Lewis was always inspired by the happenings of the Civil Rights Movement. Events such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott or hearing the wise words of Martin Luther King Junior over the radio stimulated his desire to become a part of a worthwhile cause, and was a supporter of the Civil Rights Movement ever since ("Biography," para. 3). Lewis went to school at both the American Baptist Theological Seminary and Fisk University, both in Nashville, Tennessee. He graduated from the American Baptist Theological Seminary, and received a Bachelors degree in religion and philosophy from Fisk University. While at Fisk, he learned the philosophy of how to be nonviolent, and would soon incorporate that into his civil rights work ("John Lewis Biography," para. 3). While he was a student at Fisk University, Lewis began putting together sit-ins at local lunch counters to protest segregation. Many...
I believe this research paper to be a way to honor Davis for her efforts toward furthering justice for all people, no matter their gender or race. Angela Davis grew up surrounded by politically opinionated, educated, and successful family members who influenced her ideals and encouraged her development and ambition. Her father attended St. Augustine’s College, a historically black school in North Carolina (Davis 20). Her brother, Ben Davis, was a successful football player who was a member of teams such as the Cleveland Browns and the Detroit Lions (Davis 23). Her mother, Sallye Davis, was substantially involved in the civil rights movement and was a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (Davis 42).
King’s murder expressed the violence and repression of Memphis police, and the daily violence towards African Americans in America. As an outcome, widespread civil disobedience (revolts, looting, burning), was sparked in 125 cities across the country. For years, tensions had been building between King and those who his beliefs threatened.
“There were accomplishments that king had done through his life before his assassination. One of his accomplishment’s that Dr. king that was talked about was “Memphis Station Work”. The black workers in Memphis had been protesting about their terrible working experience and how they were always discriminated against and how the pay. African American’s had known they had been discriminated against because when they had been sent home without pay the white workers stayed working and got pay”. ("King, Martin Luther, Jr." Encyclopedia of Race and Racism, edited by John Hartwell Moore, vol. 2, Macmillan
Kelly Miller Smith had a vastly different childhood in his hometown of Mound Bayou, Mississippi than most Civil Rights activists; this tiny town was a safe haven for African Americans; in this town being an African American was a source of pride for its citizens rather than a source of shame. Most importantly, Jim Crow was non-existent there. That’s probably why Perry Monroe and Priscilla Smith decided to start a family there and on October 28, 1920 ; Their fourth child Kelly Miller Smith was born. Smith and his six siblings lived quietly in Mound Bayou with their parents who instilled traditional Christian values in their
Lynching, which occurred most frequently in the southern states, resulted in the hanging, mutilation, and death of many blacks at the hands of a powerful white ruling class. While lynchings of this type have not occurred as frequently as in previous decades, it has morphed into a new form, a form that is arguably just as devastating. Instead of unjustly prosecuting blacks, this new form of lynching targets celebrities and politicians and media to accomplish what is commonly referred to as “hi-tech lynching”. The job of the media is to relay information to a general public.
Zheng’s research only further supports this suspicion of media’s role in raising public awareness of racism, or racially motivated violence. As Zheng notes, “...instances of everyday racism are only reported on if famous people are involved...The public has become...jaded with cases like these and the repeated media coverage of only high profile cases neither mitigates the everyday realities of racial profiling nor makes a difference in our society’s views on these issues (Zheng, Racial Profiling and the Media, berkley.edu).” Of course, the effective result of this is that the widespread influence of racism on American society, in its most common, every day occurences, goes unaddressed. Racism and the challenges of addressing it in the average American’s
Fortunately, Hedgeman “was not naïve enough to think it would be easy to get men to open the march leadership to women, but she was determined to see it happen.” Hedgeman was an organizer to her core and it was entirely frustrating to her that while putting the March on Washington together “women were featured as singers, recruited as marchers, and relied on as organizers, but they were not granted a speaking voice.” This is because the other organizers, the men, feared to give just one women a speaking voice would make all the other women jealous. Never mind, the simple fact that they could have had two or more women speak at the march but to not give women a voice for fear of a jealous rage is the most patriarchal argument that one could use. Unfortunately, “male civil rights leaders, including those who had counted on Hedgeman’s skills and hard work over many decades had great difficulty moving beyond their belief that women were second class citizens.” Even in an oppressed group fighting for civil liberties Black men were in certain ways oppressing Black women, by not giving them their time and space to speak their due diligence was taken from them. As a result of their counterparts taking advantage of their good works, unfortunately “historians have too often follows their lead, finding it remarkably easy to leave African American women out of the civil rights histories they helped shape.” How does one rewrite a whole history and try to include people who have been left out of the narrative for fifty years, when mainstream America would rather not talk about the topic at all? Hedgeman was so hopeful about the impact that women were making in the civil rights era that she sincerely thought “August 28, 1963, might reasonably have been called “Rosa Parks Day.”’ Unfortunately for the memories of both Parks and Hedgeman
However, after learning about the impact of college years on Dr. King, it opened my eyes to the impact of college education, as “the moment of epiphany in the mind of a college student can lead to a social revolution” (Griffin 29). It is important to think for one-self, critically analyze information and to not see everything for face-value. It is easy to be invaded by legions of half-truth, prejudice, and propaganda, especially going through education in a public system, which has controlled the narrative of Dr. King as a “dreamer.” Throughout the passage of time, interpretation of people, events, and movement change, as “remembrance is always a form of forgetting, twisted by ideology, political connections, embedded in heritage tours, public rituals, textbooks, and in aspects of mass culture” (Hal1 1245). By not learning about the Civil Rights Movement that has been tailored to make the leaders of significant movement appear boring and less believing in this class, it enabled me to think critically and understand that the Civil Rights Movement is an undefeated and unfinished revolution. In America today, an ongoing Civil Rights movement is being fought. This class enabled the scholars to practice the true function of education, which is to “sift and weight evidence, to discern the
Kalev Leetaru, a contributor of Forbes looks at data through web searches and televisions to find out whether the BLM Movement is striving or fading. Through his research he notices that searches for the topic of the BLM Movement on Google and Youtube web searches did not happen until Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson was found not guilty of the shooting of Michael Brown, an African American who was unarmed (Leetaru 2015). However, what really cause the search to rise was when BLM protesters took over Bernie Sander’s microphone who is running in the presidential campaign and was trying to get votes. Therefore, they prevented him from speaking and got their message about “Black Lives Matter” out on the media. This shows that there are times when BLM does not even get to be on the media, which causes them to interrupt presidential candidates to gain their spotlight in media. This is similar to how Jerry Rubin received a subpoena to appear in court, but he utilize that moment and wore the American Revolutionary War costume which earned him a “national reputation” and “launched his career” as a seller of a symbol of being against the Vietnam war (Gitlin 2003: 172). However, instead of an individual, it was a group of people who was protesting about BLM and similar to how Rubin utilize his moments to represent his anti-war “Yippie Group,” the BLM