The civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a movement organized by black Americans to protest against racial discrimination. The black Americans wanted to enjoy rights just like white Americans, right to vote, right to employment, right to education, and free from police brutality. Black Americans like Martin Luther King Jnr and Malcolm X championed on the movements, organizing protests to put pressure on the government to pass laws to protect the blacks. The movements were different since Martin Luther encouraged peaceful and non-violent demonstrations while Malcolm X was for violent actions if the government refused to listen to their ideas. Many blacks were arrested during the protest, their properties destroyed, and some blacks lost their lives during the protests.
Additional sources are essential in adding information to this chapter since we can learn more that was not included in the chapter. The online videos on Martin Luther’s speech and Malcolm X are essential in helping us understand the problems that the blacks were facing during the civil rights movement period. The brutality and illegal arrest of demonstrators by the authority to deprive the blacks of their rights. In Malcolm X’s speech, Ballot, or Bullets, he highlights that the blacks had no voting rights and could not exercise their democratic right. In the film, a girl Like Me Featurette, the girls speak to encourage black people to love themselves and stop seeing white people have more beautiful and superior black people are lovely.
The ordinary US citizens resisted the actions of wealthy citizens through organizing protests and strikes. The wealthy class used to oppress the poor working in the industries through low wages and subjecting them to long working hours. The workers organized strikes and protest to express their dissatisfaction with the policies adopted by the rich. Through continuous strikes and protests resulted in the formation of labor unions to fight for the rights of the workers. The great railway’s strike was because of poor wages paid to the workers, yet the railway was making a profit, and the authority wanted to reduce the workers’ salaries.
Unlike the past years, when technology was not advanced, today resisting the oppression of the rich and those in authority is easier since communication to go slow and boycotts can be done online. Organizing strikes to show dissatisfaction with the policies enacted by the rich, strike to communicate messages of oppression, and as a sign of resisting the oppression. Boycotts are also an essential sign of expressing the feelings of resistance to the wealthy and those in power, boycotting goods and commodities from their companies so that they can incur losses and start making laws favorable to all the people.