civil rights freedom

     There are many lessons that I have learned in the Civil Rights Movement, but freedom is the most important. Equal rights, equity and equality are all important components of freedom. Without civil rights activists the united states would still be the horrible place it used to be. Schools, busses, work and everything about social life would be segregated and the world would be a much different place. Freedom and equal rights were the main goals of activists such as Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, and Malcolm X. Dr King focused on desegregation and the use of civil disobedience, with nonviolence. Malcolm X on the other hand wanted to gain equality and freedom through a more any means necessary approach. Then there is small activist movements like Rosa Parks and her refusing to leave her seat on the bus for a white man. Even though Parks didn’t give huge speeches or lead protests she showed that if you stand up what for you believe in, one person can make a huge difference. Not only is that an important lesson for civil rights time, its an important concept for people today.
    Despite the great efforts of the sixties civil rights activists, America still struggles with problems with equality and equity usually because of  racism and discrimination. Some of the time its obvious, outright mean racism, but mostly in more recent times its institutional racism. This form of racism is commonly in schools, work, and the legal system, the dangerous part is that its usually subconscious racism. It is easily the hardest type of racism there is because it usually isn’t on purpose. For example jail systems are extremely unbalanced when it comes to race. Also the school graduation stats are also not in favor of black and Hispanic students. Sadly its very difficult to fix these problems, but if we try to achieve equity hopefully institutional racism will decrease.
    The other freedom struggles Americans face today is the balance between freedom and order. The occupy Oakland protests are the perfect example of this struggle, protesters want to rally but the police and the city wants them to leave. Forever there will be people to support both sides. There is a lot of similarities and differences between protesters today and the protesters of the civil rights movements. One being they both are fighting for a cause but the main similarity is the standing up for what you believe is right and wanting something changed. The main difference is the reason, back then protests were for freedom regarding race, now they are about society’s other problems. Though the world today has its problems it would be a lot more complicated if society was still segregated. We always have to remember to give thanks to the activists who fought to give us a chance at equality