The Awakening Reflection
The documentary ''The Awakening'' from ‘Eyes on the prize’ changed some of my beliefs regarding African-American Civil Rights Movement in the United States.
I noticed that the black community and the bigots, two adverse groups, had something in common – Christianity. It was the backbone of their actions. The Ku Klux Klan is a white supremacist terrorist organization. With research, I learned that one of their goals is to bring back Protestant values in America. The black Americans, Protestants too, spent hours praying before Martin Luther King Jr's masses. The fact that such opposing groups practiced the same religion shocked me. This means that the KKK’s hatred towards African-Americans is counterproductive.
‘‘The Awakening’’ showed me how
much the application of Jim Crow laws differed between the North and the South of America. Emmett Till, a boy from Chicago, underestimated the extent of the rules. The policemen took his life for talking ‘‘inappropriately’’ to a white woman while he was in Mississippi. He could have done the same action in Chicago, his home state, without consequences. If Till’s skin was a few shades lighter, the woman would have taken Emmett’s words lightly, brushing them off, and he wouldn’t be killed. Before watching this video, I thought that all white people were racist back then. The social benefits segregation gave them, like taking the front seats of buses for example, seemed too advantageous to decline. I was wrong. Some of them would bolster black people by supporting their fight for inalienable rights and freedom. The supremacists would then beat up white people, individuals from their own race, for standing with the ‘‘enemy’’. These acts of courage prove that there will always be a ray of kindness and compassion shining through the animosity.
To conclude, ''The Awakening'' modified my perception of the African-American fight for desegregation.
I noticed that the black community and the bigots, two adverse groups, had something in common – Christianity. It was the backbone of their actions. The Ku Klux Klan is a white supremacist terrorist organization. With research, I learned that one of their goals is to bring back Protestant values in America. The black Americans, Protestants too, spent hours praying before Martin Luther King Jr's masses. The fact that such opposing groups practiced the same religion shocked me. This means that the KKK’s hatred towards African-Americans is counterproductive.
‘‘The Awakening’’ showed me how
much the application of Jim Crow laws differed between the North and the South of America. Emmett Till, a boy from Chicago, underestimated the extent of the rules. The policemen took his life for talking ‘‘inappropriately’’ to a white woman while he was in Mississippi. He could have done the same action in Chicago, his home state, without consequences. If Till’s skin was a few shades lighter, the woman would have taken Emmett’s words lightly, brushing them off, and he wouldn’t be killed. Before watching this video, I thought that all white people were racist back then. The social benefits segregation gave them, like taking the front seats of buses for example, seemed too advantageous to decline. I was wrong. Some of them would bolster black people by supporting their fight for inalienable rights and freedom. The supremacists would then beat up white people, individuals from their own race, for standing with the ‘‘enemy’’. These acts of courage prove that there will always be a ray of kindness and compassion shining through the animosity.
To conclude, ''The Awakening'' modified my perception of the African-American fight for desegregation.