Voting Rights Movement Analysis

(Par 1) “The humanities can be described as the study of how people process and document the human experience. Since humans have been able, we have used philosophy, literature, religion, art, music, history and language to understand and record our world. These modes of expression have become some of the subjects that traditionally fall under the humanities umbrella. Knowledge of these records of human experience gives us the opportunity to feels sense of connection to those who have come before us, as well as to our contemporaries.” (Stanford University) Culture is defined as the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the
universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving. (Texas A&M University) (The Civil Rights Movement and the Black Revolution was a….) After careful examination of the culture elements of police brutality, voting rights and social movements and a comparison and contrast of these elements in the 1960’s and present day, it will be proven that the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Revolution had a real impact on our culture today.
(Par2) Police brutality is defined as “the use of any force exceeding the reasonably necessary to accomplish a lawful police purpose.” (Police brutality) In the 1960’s 8 out 10 people across the nation actually had a great deal of respect in law enforcement. (Dykes) (truthstreammedia) In the 1960s whites did not let African Americans have equal rights. When it came down to non-violent protest white officers would use billy clubs to beat protesters, spray them with high pressure water hoses, used attack dogs, kick/punch, and lynched. Sometimes they would beat or kill them just because they wanted to. Emmett Till was a fourteen year old boy who when into a grocery store in Money, Mississippi to buy some gum. Later he was brutally beaten and shot in the head by two white men named Mose Wright and his brother in law J.W. Milam and later dumped in the Tallahatchie River. Trayvon Martin was a seventeen year old boy who walked into a 7-Eleven in Sanford, Florida near his gated community to buy skittles and an Arizona Ice Tea was shot on his way home by man named George Zimmerman who though Martin was acting suspicious and out of place. In the aftermath of Trayvon’s death it was said that his death was the Emmitt Till of our time. Both of their deaths are similar with tragic outcomes. Emmitt Till’s death was when the ideology of whites were superiority during slavery and the Jim Crow codes were out in the Deep South. Racial profiling lead to Trayvon’s death. In today’s society there are concepts of racial order, in these case its blacks have their “place” in society. The visual images of today’s inequality is named black ghetto. (Anderson) (Washington Monthly) Police brutality have many negative aspects. Police drive recklessly or speed for unnecessary reasons in their police vehicles, they talk on the phone and text while driving, they do not always wear their seatbelts, and most importantly that treat citizens disrespectlly no matter what situation they are in. (Cappitelli) (policeone)

(par3)The Voting Right Act of 1965 is a defined as “a law passed at the time of the Civil Rights Movement.
It limited various devices, such as literacy test, that had traditionally been used to restrict voting by African Americans.” (Voting Rights) After the Civil War the 15th Amendment was signing 1870 stating that no man would be denied their right to vote based upon the color of their skin. In the 1960’s in the South non-violent voting right activist were subjected to being mistreated and abused. Legislation found ways to restrict African Americans from voting like poll tax, legation test, grandfather clause, and answering ridiculous questions. On March 7 peaceful protesters in Selma, Alabama march to the state capital in Montgomery where they met Alabama troopers and were beaten by nightsticks, tear gas and were whipped by men on horses because they refused to turn back and go home. This incident was caught on national television. On May 26, 1965 the Voting Right bill was passed in the U.S Senate. July 9, the House of Representatives passed the bill after debating over it for a month. Finally on August 6 the Voting Right act was sighed in the law by President Lyndon Johnson with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and other civil right leading by his side at the ceremony. (History) In 2013 in the Shelby v. Holder decision the Supreme Court decided to get one the most effective protections for the right to vote by “requiring certain jurisdictions with a history of voting
discrimination get pre-approval for voting changes. Some states did not waste anytime acting in these laws such as Texas, Mississippi, North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, South Dakota, Iowa and Indiana. (Voting Rights Act, Major Dates in History) (aclu) There are pros and cons to voting rights. Having voting rights protects minority interest, facilitates two party systems and it directs power to the states. The cons are that's persons candidate may not win, small states have more power and its complicated and people will not always vote.

(par4) social movements can be defined as “a group of diffusely organized people or organizations striving toward a common goal relating to human society or social change, or the organized activities of such a group.” In the 1960s the biggest social movement was the Civil Rights Movement.
The Civil Rights Movement was a social protest to end long standing political, social, economic, and legal practice of discrimination against African Americans. Martin Luther King Jr. led the non-violent protest in Albany, Georgia, Birmingham, Alabama, Washington D.C. and Salma, Alabama between 1962 through 1965. In the 1960’s students created the Student Nonviolent Coordination committee also known as SNCC, who fought the right to vote and to end discriminatory laws and practices. The Student Movement was another major social movement. The Student Movement was a group of mainly a group of whites who worked alongside civil right protesters that fought to end racism, poverty and wanted to increase students and end the Vietnam War. In 1960 the Students for Democratic Society also known as SDS was created and gained 100,000 members by 1968. In 1964 the Free Speech Movement was created by the help of the SDS in California, Berkeley. Students at Berkeley felt that they were treated like numbers and not individuals at the overcrowded campus. Other students around the nation fought by joining political campaigns forming local reform organizations. (Protest in the 1960s) One of today’s social
movements consist of the Black Lives Matter Movement. The Black Lives Matter Movement is the international movement in the African American community that protest violence against blacks. This movement was created when the killing of 17-year old Treyvon Martin happened and his murderer George Zimmerman was acquitted for the crime he committed. Black Lives Matter Movements is more than just protesting against cops killing innocent black men, they also the lives of all types of African Americans from queer, trans, disabled, undocumented, people with records, women, men and black lives along the gender spectrum. (Black Lives Matter) social movements have posture aspects when it come to making a change. Movements create equality, responsibility as a whole and segregation. Cons of social change are protest can turn into riots, distraction of public property and shootings.

(par5) As a result, of the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Revolution had a real impact on our community. To stop police brutality we should follow our Fourth Amendment, stop criminalizing everything, treat ill people with the help they need instead of like criminals and ban racist policing. (rice) (mic) organizations like Greeks, NAACP, churches, and school organizations like Student Government Association (SGA) should inform their members about the importance of voting and social movements.