3/19 Class Notes

Here are my class notes from today, 3/19 on MLK's Why We Can't Wait. 
3/19 Class Notes
Martin Luther King Why We Can’t Wait

  1. Class Discussion
    1. Final Project Notes
      1. Presentation is April 22nd in Lib
      2. April 14th entries need to be drafted and ready to submit
      3. April 1st list of 12 terms/events in the order we want to do them
  2. Shift from legal approach to non violence approach
    1. Discussion Questions
      1. What made 1963 the year in which the SCLC’s non-violent movement accelerated? Consider cultural, political, and historical factors.
      2. Explain the political and cultural significance of non-violence as a method of social change. Why choose this method? How effective was it? Why?
      3. What challenges did King and the SCLC face in building a non-violent movement in Birmingham? How successful were they in overcoming them?
    2. Martin Luther King
      1. Narrow version of MLK taught in high schools
        1. “‘I had a dream speech” and then everything got better”
      2. How do we feel after reading this book? How did it change our perception and in what ways?
        1. How does King position himself in the history we have been studying?
          1. Interesting that
          2. “In order to then understand… the failure to bring it to life.” pg.7
            1. Nine years after Brown and what has transpired in that time?
              1. The unwillingness to change, would rather shut down places instead of desegregating
            2. Pupil placement law
              1. Basically reversed Brown v. Board
                1. Aimed at undermining Brown
              2. Tokenism
              3. The law permitted the states to decide where to place children
    3. Southern Response to Brown
      1. Cartoon by Jon Kennedy, Little Rock Arkansas Democrat
        1. Cap and gown man
          1. Playing into stereotypes of academics/intellectuals
          2. Telling A guy that is doing his job just fine to do it differently
          3. We don’t need these people in D.C. deciding how we are going to live our lives
    4. Southern Manifesto (1956)
      1. That it was unconstitutional and the original constitution would not allow this overstep of power
        1. Because education is a state matter
        2. It is never mentioned in the constitution and thus is a state power
        3. “We pledge ourselves
          1. Refused to accept Brown decision and argue against it constitutionally and also by an approach of massive resistance
          2. Harry Byrd
            1. Virginia should embrace massive resistance to this federal encroachment of states rights
              1. You should not compromise at all with educational orders
        4. Virginia decides it is not going to fund public schools
          1. Most communities close their public schools which results in the birth of private and charter schools
          2. So committed to maintaining a system of segregation that they would rather not have public education
      2. George Wallace
        1. Declared in his inauguration address “I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever”
    5. Issues we have between Brown in 1952 to Birmingham in 1963
      1. Brown vs culture of Massive Resistance (pendular swing)
      2. JFK promise vs JFK reality
      3. Murder of Emmett Till
      4. Decolonization
      5. Montgomery Bus Boycott
    6. Going back to King
      1. If you are an African-American in 1963, where are you?
        1. You are stuck in limbo because you are making progress legally but nothing is coming about it
          1. Court cases are ineffective in some nature
        2. Critique passage
          1. “Negroes had manifested their faith… coast on Civil Rights.” page 9
            1. Kennedy had to keep Southern Democrats on his side
        3. Global freedom struggle
          1. Looking abroad and seeing African countries become independent and thinking what tf is going on in Mississippi
        4. What is the resolution that they want from MBB?
          1. Desegregation of the buses
          2. Need to be in the position of America as a victim of the unjust system
        5. Why is nonviolent protest effective? What is the promise and challenge? What does it offer? Where does the difficulty lie?
          1. “Acceptance of non violent direct action… automatic reflexes” pg. 31
          2. “Like his predecessors,....with the rest of the world looking on.” pg 31
          3. “For decades…” page 21
          4. Had to be public and it would win the sympathy of Americans and breaking the way African-Americans had been displayed publicly?
          5. “Jailing the Negro was once….that once motivated the slave owner.” page 20
        6. MLK is saying and what we are gonna do is show nonviolence
          1. Non violence paralyzed and confused.. It was the first time that a Negro dared to look back at a white man eye to eye.” page 34
          2. Whites won’t know what to do with it and it will leave them powerless
          3. You have to be willing to die before you are able to live
          4. System is built on fear and when they are nonviolent the control is lost
            1. Taking away the veneer of African-Americans need to be kept in their place by the self presentation of the African-Americans as far more civilized and law-abiding citizens
          5. The caricature of what African-Americans are thought of as in the South vs reality
            1. Couldn't have anything on you that could be viewed as a weapon (not even a toothpick)
        7. Young adults and youth being central to the movement
          1. Does it matter optically and ethically?
            1. Ethically it matters
              1. Does the fact that it is young adult vs child make a difference?
                1. Innocence associated with children
          2. Challenge of how do you prepare people for this level of brutality
        8. What is the role of violence in the South segregation
          1. It is the mechanism that enforces it
          2. Nonviolence brings it out into light
          3. The public aspect of it circulating nationwide was the goal
        9. What is this supposed to accomplish? Why do this?
          1. Need to get people to care about it to vote for major legislation to remove segregation concerning voting and bring about the Civil Rights Act
      2. Rosa Parks
        1. Secretary of Montgomery, Alabama NAACP chapter
        2. Story is misconstrued
      3. MLK becomes leader of MBB
        1. Becomes leader almost by default
          1. “Martin didn’t make the movement, the movement made Martin”

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