In Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham Jail, Dr. King responds to his critics who called his recent actions "unwise and untimely." His actions were a part of a non-violent agenda. I think King's responses to these critics gave very detailed explanations on why his actions were what they were and why they happened when they happened. One of the things that you do not really learn in high school, or at least is not a big part of what you learn, is that all black citizens did not always support and/or agree with King's actions and methods. You do not learn about the questioning and the criticisms that King received at the time. In high school, Martin Luther King is portrayed almost as a perfect man with a one hundred percent following and support from his people. This intern was obviously not the case. As you can see in the first paragraph of the Letter from Birmingham Jail, King says that he would not even be able to get anything constructive done if he had to respond to all the critics that were out there. When you are taught about the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960's you talk about how white people and black people were always clashing ideas, but you never talk about some of the backlash that leaders of the movement, such as King, received from their own people about their actions and methods. In fact, until this class, I was never even asked to think about the possibility of there being any conflicts within the black race itself at the time. This is a subject that I believe schools and education around the United States in general need to improve upon. Not giving more details about what was going on is an injustice to the students of America.

Comments

  1. Sean DoranMay 5, 2019 at 3:46 PM

    I agree with Nick and the points he has brought up. Like Nick, I was never taught in high school anything about how King faced criticism from other African American Civil Rights leaders. When Nick said that we are taught how blacks and whites were clashing ideas but not blacks and blacks he couldn’t have been more spot on. For example, in this class we talk about Malcolm X. I just one to say that in high school I did not even learn about Malcolm X. I just knew him as another Civil Rights leader. However, in this class we learned that he did not agree with King at all. He advocated for violence and retaliation while King promoted nonviolence. In his speeches he even degrades King and several other Civil Rights leaders. He calls them clowns and that they are being controlled by the white higher-ups. We never learned anything like this in high school. I learned that King was the almighty Civil Rights leader that everyone loved and no one disagreed with. Reading Letter From Birmingham Jail and Malcolm X Speaks was very interesting to me because it gave me a perspective of the Civil Rights Movement that I was not introduced to before. I believe that high schools should start telling the whole truth when talking about MLK. The fact that I went through twenty years of life knowing so little about a huge part of American history is eye-opening to me. We should be introduced to all Civil Rights leaders and their views so we don’t go through life believing that King was the only man who did anything for racial progress in the United States. This class has opened up so many different perspectives of the Civil Rights Movement and I think it should be a law that everyone else be exposed to this information also.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Freedom Riders 3/26

As I watched the “Freedom Riders” documentary, the more disgusted I become at that racial injustices in American history. At the beginning of the documentary, there is a small montage of bigots giving poor excuses as to why the South should remain segregated. However, there was one quote that stuck out that stated, “You can not change a way of life overnight. The more they try to force us into doing something, the worse the reaction is going to be.” Racism should not be a way of life anyone wants to live through or put onto someone else. The Freedom Riders and many nonviolent protesters weren’t physically imposing on others, so why was the reaction of segregationists to worsening as “they try to force” them into a realistic way of life? Watching the documentary and listening to how the Riders were willing to be martyrs for the Movement as they were physically attacked, their property was destroyed via molotov and mentally drained daily makes me appreciate activism a great deal more, ...
Read more
After reading the rest of Kwame Ture and Charles V. Hamilton's Black Power and then reflecting about what we talked about in class on Tuesday, I still cannot put my finger on an exact definition of "black power." I do believe, though, that "black power" cannot be achieved without a change in the political structure of America. When reading the fourth chapter of this book, the idea that people in power control the law is brought up. I, almost, one hundred percent agree with this. The quote from the book that stood out to me was "Law is the agent of those in political power; it is the product of those powerful enough to define right and wrong and to have that definition legitimized by "law." This is not to say that "might makes right," but it is to say that Might makes Law." This quote shows how political leaders shape the law. Those in power get to make the laws, whether they are just or not. I still believe this today. I believe...
Read more

What It's Like to Be Black on Campus Now

In Melissa Harris-Perry’s article, “What It’s Like to Be Black on Campus Now”, she discusses the issues behind race in education and institutions through ten black student journalists who tell their personal experiences. She gives an example from the University of Missouri, explaining how one student decided to stop eating in protest of inaction and ineffective administrative responses to racial incidents on campus. 30 Missouri football players joined this one student in protest and University of Missouri’s president resigned soon after. This example is powerful because it shows other institutions that when you unite together, change can come. Harris- Perry continues to talk about how important education is to black families and how hard it is to send their children to a place that can be so full of hatred towards their race. She wrote, “Viewing higher education as a pathway to equity, African American families and communities have made enormous sacrifices to send black kids to college...
Read more