History Of Civil Right Movements: Martin Luther King Jr., The Role Of Mass Media, And Current Struggles

Martin Luther King Jr. born January 15th 1929, he was a Baptist minister that led the civil rights movement from 1954 until his untimely death in 1968. A few of his most notable actions were the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, In 1957 he became the leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and his nonviolent protests in 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama. For his protests in Birmingham king was actually arrested for demonstrating without a permit, he spent eleven days in jail and ordered by the court to no longer protest in Birmingham. The reasoning behind this protest was to bring attention to light to the injustices that were taking place in Birmingham. While incarcerated King wrote a letter to his fellow clergymen. During the 1960s segregation was a very prominent ideology with everything from white only restrooms to amusement parks where only white people were allowed. Dr. King’s own daughter asked him “Daddy why are white people so mean to colored people?” with his children experiencing such cruel treatment he knew that he must take action.

In Birmingham the segregation was especially prominent. At the time blacks lived in constant fear of lynch mobs, scrutiny from the police and just overall a constant unnerving fear for their life. There were no types of laws in affect to protect black people’s god given rights. While incarcerated Dr. King wrote a letter addressed to the Birmingham clergymen defending nonviolent protests. King was attempting to bring attention to the types of injustices that were projected on to black people simply because they were different. He was attempting to do this by conducting nonviolent protests in which the participants were often greeted with violence by community members and authority figures. By bringing attention to what was being conducted by southern communities all over he hoped to kickstart a change that would make it better for blacks within those communities. While reading the letter you begin to get a firm understanding on King’s frustration with the Birmingham community, time after time he mentions that he can no longer sit around and wait for the people of Birmingham to bring about the change that he and blacks in the community are seeking.

In one section of the letter Dr. King mentions the four basic steps to a non-violent campaign the first of which is, “collection of facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification; and direct action. ” With this stated I believe King is trying to show the Birmingham people that he has already exhausted the resources within his repertoire, so he has no other choice to try something different. He decides that the only choice he has is to take a nonviolent direct-action approach by conducting sit ins, marches and so on. He explains that the purpose behind this approach is to cause a “crisis” which in turn forces the Birmingham clergymen to open up a dialogue forum with the black people of this Alabama community. It leaves them no choice but to hear what the black people have to say despite trying their hardest to avoid the conversation.

Dr. King understood full well that taking this approach could lead to violent reactions from the opposing members of the community he mentions beginning a series of workshops in which he asks not only himself but his constituents as well, “Are you able to accept blows without retaliating? Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?” they collectively agree that enduring jail or taking a few punches is worth the overall cause they were fighting for. Dr. King felt as though there were two types of laws just and unjust first of which he states, “A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of god. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. ” He believes that in order for a man to justify which laws should be fought against it has to go against the “moral law”. When making statements about just and unjust laws he makes references to Hitler in Germany, he mentions, “everything Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything Hungarian freedom fighters did was “illegal”, when we see king using extreme metaphors such as comparing Hitler’s Germany to the current laws within Birmingham Alabama it brings about questions that begin to make you question your morality. This is exactly the type of reactions that Dr. King wanted to bring about when he wrote this letter he wanted people to see for themselves the type of injustices that they were committing against their own brothers and sisters people who had just as much a right to be American citizens as any other person living in this country. When we devalue and dehumanize another person it shows that we are no better than Hitler slaughtering another culture of people simply because they. Don’t fit his description of what the perfect person looks like. With that being said King felt it was his moral obligation to fight against laws that were passed in Birmingham because they violated the god given rights of the blacks in that community. He saw that he could no longer sit idly by and watch his people continue to be oppressed by laws that were purposely passed to prevent the black community from progressing.

Although King suffered through these things many years ago most things they fought against then are still relevant to today’s society. Civil rights are defined as, ” The rights of citizens to political and social freedom and equality”, these are rights that any citizen within the united states are entitled to despite the color of their skin, which country they originate from, or even what religion they choose to practice. With king opening up the forum for discussion it forced the people of Birmingham to have the difficult conversations, by making people uncomfortable with the current situation it forces change to be brought about whether people want to admit it or not. King’ goal was never to create violence in the community of Birmingham but he understood that every single move he made was going to be scrutinized so his decision to perform nonviolent protests was a difficult one to make but it was effective in the fact that not one person could discredit his points because every action he made was articulated in such a way to provide the most impact and bring about the most effective form of change. He understood that it would be easy to fight and cause ruckus, but it would bring about no change because instead of people focusing on your discrepancies they would be more focused on the violent acts you were committing. He understood that there was already a predisposed judgement that blacks within the southern part of the country were inferior, so he elected to show that that we deserved to be treated with the same respect that every other person within the united states.

The media played a large role in the civil rights movement because it provided a second form of exposure that reached everyone in the country and not just the people local to the area. The movement was displayed on local news stations newspapers all around the country and I feel as though without this exposure the movement wouldn’t have brought about such an expedited change within that community. By flooding the papers and news stations with coverage about the protests that were taking place within Birmingham it began to make people question the actions they were taking against black people within the community. The hidden tensions that I believe king was referring to is people who tried to deny the violent acts that were being committed against black people within Birmingham but once the media began to film the acts as they were committed the hatred that was being spewed could no longer be denied. The media provided a real time following of what was occurring during the civil rights movement without such an outlet I do believe that yes eventually things would have changed butt, the media seemed to expedite those discussions because it forced people to watch those inhumane acts be committed.

Within today’s society the media still plays a large role in movements for civil rights and social injustices. Often times we don’t realize how much the media impacts our daily lives but it provides an outlet that reaches millions of people almost instantaneously. While reading this letter it made me feel that it’s still very relevant in today’s society because even today we still have people who aren’t treated in a way that upholds their god given rights. I watch the news today and there are people being killed simply because they are different or being discriminated against because they like to dress a certain way or have a certain skin color and it’s wrong. I’d like to make a reference back to when DR. King speaks about just and unjust laws this stuck out the most to me because he makes such a powerful comparison to Hitler’s Germany in which he states, “It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. ” This is important to evaluate because we see here that this is the perfect example of a law that Germans were expected to uphold but some knew that morally they couldn’t sit idly by and watch the injustices that were being projected on to a group of people simply because the lawmaker felt they were inferior to their race. I feel this occurs most often when people in positions of power begin to develop a sort of god complex in which they believe themselves to be superior to another person simply because they have more freedoms than them.

For example, the situation with Colin Kaepernick in which he used his NFL platform to bring attention to things that he felt were unjust much like dr. king he used the approach of non-violent protest to force people to have uncomfortable conversations to force change within the community. This is such an important reference to bring in because I feel like it almost portrays exactly the type of suffrages that Dr. king was attempting to bring light to in the southern part of the united states. In Kaepernick’s case it’s similar because instead of listening to the message that he is trying to portray people are attempting to demoralize his cause by spewing ill-informed knowledge. If we took the time to look at things from another person’s point of view it would allow us to attempt to experience the types of things they suffer in their daily lives.

While reading the book “The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement” written. By Aldon D. Morris he states, “A perspective is. Valuable if it provides answers to set a core of questions that enhance our basic understanding of an important phenomenon. ” Now with this quote we understand that one of the most important factors when referring to the rights of people we must put ourselves in their shoes and ask yourself am I upholding this person’s rights as a human being and if the answer is no then it is time for reevaluation of the way we are thinking. I feel as though this letter allows direct insight into the way that black people of the 1960s were feeling he provided a vivid description of the acts that were being committed against American citizens. He gave us a different “perspective” to look at the current situation from and without this letter and the coverage from the media I don’t think there would’ve been any sort of change because without perspective we have nothing because people will only continue to see one side of the story despite efforts to portray the unjust society for what it truly is.

In today’s society current civil rights struggles vastly revolve around discrimination against women specifically in the work force. I believe that if for just a day if we were subjected to the type of struggles woman go through every day it would allow us to better understand the discrepancies they have within today’s society. Without suffering the types of things, they do we have no way to understand how to help because we aren’t experiencing it and since most of the time problems don’t get solved by simply talking it’s important for us to find a way to put things into perspective so that we can efficiently solve the problems they have. Another civil rights struggle that we still suffer from is discrimination against people based on the way they look or what religion they practice for example Muslim people the reason I chose this is because there is a large stigmatism surrounding the Muslim religion in which people believe that. simply because you are Muslim you’re automatically a terrorist. This isn’t to say all people believe this but there are definitely enough people believing it that there should be a discussion had regarding a way that we can stop generalizing people based off actions of a few.

I feel as though we can never efficiently rid the world of discrimination and oppression but we can make it our moral obligation to stand up when we see acts being committed that don’t coincide with the natural rights of human beings across the world. Of course, there will always be backlash surrounding topics that are in regard to oppressive behaviors because let’s face it I don’t think anyone ever wants to admit to being a person who doesn’t value other human beings but, if we can get enough people to point out behaviors in others that are deemed morally fit we can begin to cause people to reevaluate themselves and begin to question their morals. This can be a good way to open up a forum of discussion on ways that we can make today’s society more open minded to change. Although there will always be friction I feel as though if we can continue a forward progression towards change and acceptance of the fact that everyone is created equally and allow them the same opportunities then we’ll always be on the right track.