Civil Rights Reflection

The Civil Rights Movement, a critical time period in our history, has taught me many lessons in order to further improve our country. From the Brown v. Board of Education trial, I learned that “separate is never equal”. Having separate schools, bathrooms, restaurants, etc. does not make anything equal. For example African American schools had second hand, used, and torn textbooks, broken desks, dirty facilities, etc. while white schools were clean and had brand new materials. During the civil rights, people were divided based on their skin color and were only allowed to be with their own color of race. I learned just how unfair and disrespected African Americans were treated and how much they were looked down upon by white people. From the civil rights, I learned the importance of equality and equity and just how much effort it takes to really reach equality. African Americans were not the only people unequally treated however, women, homosexuals, Native Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, and even the disabled were also badly treated. Among the diversity of people, they all persevered to achieve one common goal: equal rights. I learned about the courageous leaders of the civil rights, like Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Harvey Milk, and many more. From the civil rights, I also learned that sometimes nonviolence is actually more effective than using violence. Singing, marching, and protesting can be more effective than pushing, forcing, beating, and terrorizing people. Sometimes all it takes is to stand out from the crowd and be different. A major lesson learned from the civil rights movement is that standing up for what one believes in can in fact lead to major changes, even if it means going against the law and what everyone else thinks.

The Civil Rights Movement has been a major influence to how our society functions today. Even though America has improved drastically and is now more diverse and accepting than before, there are still some struggles that need major improvements. In order to fully reach equality, we need to successfully practice equity. One way to achieve equality is to provide and fulfill the needs of every individual. Some people don’t realize the fact that there are people who are homeless, starving, dying from diseases, etc. and we struggle to provide their needs. Even though we now have soup kitchens and financial aid, not everyone is capable of getting these benefits. Another one of our major struggles today is institutional racism. Institutional racism is a major problem that is very difficult and complex to understand and get rid of, but it happens in many places. Even though we have integrated schools that welcome every race and color, institutional racism is still a problem. For example getting accepted to college deals with institutional racism because sometimes our chances of getting accepted depends greatly on our race. In the past recent years, the average pay of a U.S. worker was about $300,000, but the amount of money that they put into the government was $600,000, twice the amount of money they earn. It’s unfair that workers don’t even know where their earned money is going. Today it seems like the rich is getting richer while the poor is getting poorer. Another struggle is the concept of gay marriages. The Gay Liberation Movement fought for the acceptance and equal rights of homosexuals. If we cannot even allow gay marriages, there is no way we can achieve equality. We struggle to view everyone has an equal individual and we must overcome this issue if we ever want the chance to reach equality. In order to not repeat the negative events that occurred in our history, we need to prevent this type of injustice behavior from happening.

The main purpose of the civil rights movement was to reach equality and to gain equal rights for every individual. Till today equality is still not fully reached because of the struggles and issues we continue to neglect. However, the civil rights has given us the idea that sitting back and letting the government control us is not going to change anything. Sometimes we need to stand up and protest against what we feel is right. The Occupy Oakland Protest dealt with economic, political, and wealth inequality. The Occupy Wall Street in New York City fought against social and economic inequality, high unemployment, greed, as well as corruption. These protests both relate to the March on Washington that occurred in 1963, that was in protest of unfair treatments of jobs and fighting for freedom. The Occupy Oakland and Occupy Wall Street protests also relate to the Greensboro Sit-Ins, which were a series of non-violent protests fighting against racial segregation, because they used the method of non-violence to get their point across. During the civil rights, women were viewed unequal and inferior to men and because of this, we now have the common ideology that women are still not capable of being as successful as men are. Another event that occurred during the civil rights that relates to the present is the Gay Liberation Movement. The purpose of this movement was to fight for the equal rights and acceptance of homosexuals. This relates to our present because we today have many conflicting issues on whether it is acceptable for gay marriages or not. In some states, people are allowed to have gay marriages but in other, it is greatly denied. Even though the Civil Rights movement occurred many years ago in our history, its messages and lessons are still influencing people to fight for their rights today.