...Dakota Deweese 6/14/24 Social Problems 6.2 Responses. To fully understand the Civil Rights Movement as a social problem, it is crucial to examine the historical context in which it unfolded. The legacy of slavery, followed by the imposition of Jim Crow laws and practices, institutionalized racial segregation and inequality in the United States. The 1896 Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld the constitutionality of "separate but equal" facilities for African Americans, further entrenched the segregationist system that affected African American citizens. The Civil Rights Movement reflected a social problem in the United States due to the pervasive social injustice and inequality experienced by African Americans. The denial of basic civil rights, such as...
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...Xavier Jones Professor Brenda Stephens Eng 101 25 November 2015 Social Inequality and Racism: How We Have Killed the Dream. On August 28, 1963 The March on Washington called for more jobs and all around freedom. It remains one of the most popular mobilizations ever created. It was planned and birthed by a union of civil rights activist and people of feminist support, in which most were African Americans. The protest drew nearly a quarter of a million people to our nation’s Capital. One of, if not the most memorable moment of The March on Washington is Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech (“The Forgotten Radical History of the March on Washington”). The entire speech was an ascending oratory that still speaks volumes today just as it did fifty plus years ago. The speech commanded social and racial neutrality, and looked to a desegregated society. The main idea behind Dr. King’s famous speech was very simple; equality for all mankind was necessary for the future. It was 1963 but yet Dr. King was so far down the line in terms of the next generation and what was needed for the nation and all people of different backgrounds, cultures, and ethnicities. He had the formula; the very last portion of the speech summed it all up when he said: “This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords...
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...Martian Luther King, arguably one of the most influential and respected social activists of all time is best known for his I have a dream speech. However King was also the author of a persuasive masterpiece in the form of a letter that he wrote while incarcerated in a Birmingham jail, that up until recent years wasn’t as highly regard as his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. On April 16, 1963, while imprisoned, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a letter addressed to eight clergymen who were allegedly concerned about what King was doing for civil rights. Dr. King’s response in the letter uses a great sum of rhetorical devices. Throughout his letter Dr. King used Ethos Pathos and Logos effectively. In order to support his avocation of non-violent protest and his reason for being in Birmingham. At the very beginning of his second paragraph in his letter, Dr. King quickly establishes his credibility, by explaining to the clergy men of his affiliation with the SCLC. King states: “I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and organization operating in every southern state” (164). Kings ability to use Ethos here is adequate, because he uses his position and affiliation with the SCLC; in order...
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...| When I was given the assignment to write an essay style paper on anything we went over in this social work class I reviewed the notes to decide what I would like to write about. I was not sure, since we covered so much in this class and I have learned a lot about Social Work from the history of social work to how the profession is today and all the different fields that a Social Worker might work in today. However I ultimately decided to write about the area of Social work that interests me the most. It is also something that I feel I have had some experience in working with. So I chose to write about the concept of Social Justice and the social worker. So let’s first take a look at the definition of Social Justice in chapter 4 of our book it defines Social Justice. However I would like to sum it up in my own words Justice simply stated means fairness and equality. So that everyone has the same opportunities for empowerment. I do not want to be the type of Social worker who is here to fix people or take care of other people. I am not interested in being someone’s babysitter or care giver. I do think it is part of the job of a good Social worker to advocate on behalf of others when we see injustices present, not to fight for the individual with an issue of injustice but rather to fight alongside of them. This is why I like the idea of Social Justice the idea of empowering others to make the changes they need in their own lives and how to work not only each individual person...
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...Between the World and Me Response The most powerful message Tah-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me is the struggle of African Americans in the United States, and how the “Dream” or American Dream, is not realistic and available for everyone. As a young child, Coates’s saw the dream as not being available to him because his family wasn’t rich, and he didn’t live in the white suburbs. Racism, crime, poverty, and violence had already been ingrained in his young mind, and he was not able to change his perspective. With Coates’s background of growing up in Baltimore, Maryland, he saw how his environment did not allow for social mobility, and how that was the only experience black children in his area knew. Coates exerts how the oppression...
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...Langston Hughes (1902-1967) Langston Hughes was the first African American writer in the United States to earn a living as a writer. He was born in Joplin, Missouri, and because of his parents’ separation he lived in several places including places in the American mid-west and Mexico. He attended Columbia University, but stopped his studies because of the discrimination he experienced at the hands of his white counterparts. Hughes was a prolific writer and his themes were driven by the racial oppression that he witnessed all around him and that he experienced first hand as well. Hughes was a prominent member of the Harlem Renaissance, which was a time in America when African Americans experienced a flowering of intellectual and cultural activities in the African American communities in Harlem, New York. Alain Locke referred to this era as the New Negro Movement. During this time, Langston Hughes and other African writers’ words were full of protest and great expressions of the social injustices that were bestowed upon African Americans. Langston Hughes often wrote about the second class citizenship status that African Americans experienced, and the ills of segregation were key themes in his writings. His writings not only voiced protest, but the theme of rejection was present in his writings. He wrote about his personal rejection from everywhere when searching for work....
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...------------------------------------------------- AMERICAN DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE Civil Rights Movement Deyana Faraj On the 4th of July 1776, 56 delegates to the Continental Congress signed a document that would not only declare independence of America from British colonial power but less than 200 years later, become the backbone of a new established America where the walls of discrimination and segregation would finally begin to deteriorate. The Declaration of Independence is a powerful document that has led to the development of equal rights and social justice within societies on a world context. More specifically, principles in this document were instrumental when argued by African American Civil Rights leaders in achieving equality and abolishing racial segregation and discrimination against African- Americans in the United States, during the African American Civil Rights Movement (1954-1968). Before the American Civil Rights Movement, laws known as Jim Crow laws had forced racial segregation of facilities and the prohibition of intermarriage. These laws were similar to the apartheid legislation and it became the law mainly in the south of America. Where there is inequality and injustice within a government, the people of the nation demand change. Since the Jim Crow laws were enacted, the laws that mandated racial segregation in public areas and the prohibition of intermarriage in the Southern United States were socially and morally unjust and this fuelled the American civil rights movement...
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...Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela Non-violence is a concept that people participate in social and political change without violence. It is a form of social and political change between passive acceptances and armed struggle. Non-violence way to participate in the social and political change is including nonviolent civil disobedience against, acts of civil disobedience or other powerful influence uncooperative antagonistic form; it is similar with pacifism, but it is not pacifism. Since the mid-20th century, nonviolence and civil disobedience become the main form of social change, and it also is respected political and social philosophy. As the practice of social and political change, non-violent has the essence difference with pacifism, it is contrary to the wishes of the oppressed, and it struggle with any injustice and power political. In my final paper, I will instruction three famous Non-violence movement leader: Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela; and also I will compare the similar and difference between them. Mahatma Gandhi was the preeminent leader of Indian nationalism in Britishruled India. Employing non-violent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for non-violence, civil rights and freedom across the world. A very important turning point in Gandhi’s life is he arrived in South Africa to work as a legal representative for the Muslim Indian traders based in the city of Pretoria...
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...Social Movement Veronica Ruiz Springfield College, School of Human Services HUSB303 S2: CORE III: Social Transformation and Alternative Visions Professor Richard T. Spears, MS, MA Psy. CPP October 9, 2015 In this paper I will be talking discussing priorities and effectiveness for a social movement. I will use examples from the books Race Matters, by Cornel West, Martin & Malcolm & America, A Dream or A Nightmare, by James H. Cone and The Civil Rights Movement by Bruce J. Dierenfield. When we think back on the historical backdrop of America many events happened that are either disapproved of, or seen as the wonderfulness days. The occasions that are the magnificence days or the most astounding focuses in American life, for example, Independence from England served to make America what it is today. Those occasions that we think back on, that are not the best periods of time, for example, slavery and African Americans battle for Rights in the 1960's, likewise served to make the United States what it is today. Whether we agree it was right, it has had an effect. At the point when in the 1960's, pioneers, for example, Martin Luther King, Jr., and religious pioneers, for example, Malcolm X, remained forward to discuss the rights that were detracted from African Americans, they were look down upon. Even when society wanted to make it seems as Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X were battling one another rather than making a movement. In the book Martin & Malcolm...
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...I Have a Dream: Critique ‘I Have a Dream’ is a 17 minute speech delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. on 28 August, 1963 in Washington D.C. during the ‘March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom’. Addressing more than 200,000 both, Black and White American civil rights supporters, from the steps of Lincoln Memorial along with the thousands of Americans viewing the live national broadcast, King effectively got his stance as a leading civil rights activist in the American Civil Rights Movement across: an end to the prevalent racial discrimination in the country; an end to the inequality, inferiority, oppression and injustice; a ray of hope for a free, prosperous and bright future for the Black Americans. Even though King relies too heavily on emotional reasoning rather than logic and does not provide the audience with any practical ways of achieving his goal of eliminating racial discrimination, he still succeeds in persuading them through a well structured and researched speech, the use of the Aristotelian appeals of ethos and pathos, visual metaphors, repetition of phrases and words and identification with the audience using a ‘we’ oriented approach. His entire speech is so well structured that it could be broken down into two visible chunks; presenting a wonderful transition from ‘what is’ to ‘what ought to be’. Initially he brings to light the harsh reality being lived by Black Americans from the past to present; their poor, deplorable plight, the grave oppression and...
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...High scores will he earned only by essays that both cite key pieces of evidence from the documents and draw on outside knowledge of the period. Analyze the changes that occurred during the 1960's in the goals, strategies, and support of the movement for African American civil rights. Use the documents and your knowledge of the history of the 1960's to construct your response. Document A “We affirm the philosophical or religious ideal of nonviolence as the foundation of our purpose, the presupposition of our faith, and the manner of our action. Nonviolence as it grows from Judaic-Christian traditions seeks a social order of justice permeated by love. Integration of human endeavor represents the crucial first step towards such a society. Through nonviolence, courage displaces fear; love transforms hate. Acceptance dissipates prejudice; hope ends despair. Peace dominates war; faith reconciles doubt. Mutual regard cancels enmity. Justice for all overthrows injustice. The redemptive community supersedes systems of gross social immorality.” Source: Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) statement of purpose, April 1960. Document B “The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense calls upon the American people in general and the black people in particular to take careful note of the racist California Legislature which is now considering legislation aimed at keeping the black people disarmed and powerless at the very same time that racist police...
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...society in the future. That is one of the reasons why dictators are quick to seize the school system when they take over a country. Confidence in Education Citizens of the United States have a strong faith in the value of education. As a result, the United States has developed the most comprehensive education system in the world (Curry, Jiobu, & Schwirian, 2005). Our schools are expected to accomplish many purposes. The nation’s founders proposed a mass educational system that would be free to most citizens because they believed that diffusion of knowledge to the general population was important for building a nation. They wanted a consistent and systematic education that would produce individuals with a strong sense of civic duty. A literate citizenry was viewed as necessary in order to produce loyal Americans, develop moral training, and promote social stability (Altenbaugh, 2002). Thus, public-supported mass education became a foundation for the educational system of the United States. Following through on this early legacy, schools have come to be viewed as a key ele- ment in achieving the “American dream.” Schools provide the “credentials” that open doors to high-income and high-status occupations. In addition, the schools have been per- ceived as a major institution for addressing injustice and helping individuals attain per- sonal happiness (Curry, Jiobu, & Schwirian, 2005). This faith in education has led to the assignment of a wide range of responsibilities...
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...Leaders for social and political change Michelle Clark WGU Themes in U.S. and World History GKE August 1, 2013 Leaders for social and political change Over the course of history, there have been many battle stories, both political and social of how nations have become what we know today. Among these stories are those of social injustices, hatred, and racism, as well as personal and political struggles. From the many injustices our predecessors have overcome, leaders have emerged. Individuals who will forever be revered by millions and will hopefully continue to inspire our youth. Nelson Mandela and Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. are two leaders that have greatly impacted not only their country, but the world. Both of these leaders had a significant impact on the people of their cause, both in a political aspect as well as for social change. In 1948, The White Nationalist Party empowered South Africa, instituting apartheid in an attempt to ensure white domination, control over the economy and its social systems. There were three racial categories for South Africa; Whites, Colored (mostly Indians or Asians, or multiracial), and Blacks (African decent). Non-white people were impoverished, humiliated, and oppressed. Black people were required to live in rural areas and carry a passbook containing their fingerprints, photo and information on access to non-black areas. If they were caught without a passbook, severe penalties ensued. On March 21, 1960, a group marched...
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...trailblazing entrepreneur, philanthropist, and activist who left an indelible mark on American history. Her remarkable journey from poverty to becoming the first female self-made millionaire in the United States is a testament to her resilience, innovation, and commitment to empowering others. This essay will delve into the life, achievements, and enduring impact of Madame CJ Walker, highlighting her contributions to the beauty industry, advocacy for African American rights, and her lasting legacy as a pioneer of economic empowerment. Madame CJ Walker's entrepreneurial spirit and determination were evident from an early age. Born in 1867 to formerly enslaved parents, she faced numerous challenges and hardships. However, her unwavering resolve led her to establish a successful line of hair care products specifically designed for African American women. Recognizing the need for specialized hair care solutions within her community, she developed and marketed her own products, including the renowned "Madam Walker's Wonderful Hair Grower." Through her innovative approach and business acumen, she not only transformed her own life but also uplifted countless others by providing employment opportunities and promoting self-confidence among African American women....
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...The Civil Rights Movement was a time of social change in America. Slavery had been abolished but African Americans still lacked rights. With all the injustices a change needed to happen, and for this, many brave people were needed. Brave people who wanted change and were willing to do whatever was necessary to get it, to fight for the belief that all men were created equal and that they should be treated that way. Some of these key figures in the Civil Rights Movement were Jackie Robinson, Martin Luther King Jr., and John F. Kennedy. Jackie Robinson helped shape and influence the Civil Rights Movement. In the 1940’s, baseball was considered America’s game, and baseball was right at the heart of all Americans. Baseball at this time had an...
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