54 thoughts on “Blog #152 – Reactions to the chapter, “The Good Protest””

1. AJ Geissbuhler April 30, 2023 at 12:07 pm

   2. The four misconceptions of the CRm was that the protests of the CRM were the first of its kind, that most Americans gave support to the protesters and their leaders, that they quickly exposed and stopped hatred, and that they ended the racial inequality in America.

   American protests in history books have been portrayed as righteous through the eyes of the government. They bring up key victories in the problems, but they never give the full story. The protesters too, are left empty handed as only the leaders are chosen to be written about. In history books, Dr. King was the main leader, and he is detailed in the sacrifices that he made. Bayard Rustin for example, isn’t commonly known about today. He was a huge civil rights leader and impacted the movement as a whole. However, he was openly gay and wasn’t supported by the larger public, and so he was pushed aside.

   6. The poll percentage of 1966 saw that only 36% of white Americans supported Dr. King, while the other 72% had an unfavorable opinion. These true numbers go back to what history books say. The books illustrate the idea that most Americans supported the civil rights movement, while in reality the larger public disagreed with it. The number of people who didn’t agree with Dr. King and his ideas are staggering, as 123 million people out of 195 million people didn;t care about the rights of African Americans.

   3. Both actions by Plessy and Parks sparked protests in each of their respective times. In the late 1800’s, Plessy boarded a train and refused to get up after a white man wanted to sit. He was then arrested and taken to court. In 1903, Montgomery city council passed a law that prohibited interfering with lawful business. This was to prevent another Plessy incident, and his followers from trying to break segregation laws. However, this same law, caused by Plessy, is the exact law that the police charged Rosa Parks with.

   7. Dr. King and Rosa Parks today are icons of the CRM, and are known for their courageous actions against segregation and racism. However, during their time alive, they were called communists by some southern sympathizers, to make the country believe that they were just hating communism, and not the racial hate. This strategy by some americans worked, as african american only schools in the deep south were called communist training schools. After their lives, the future presidents slowly tried to tarnish their reputation. But, a resurgents of their actions and good nature have been up today, as in the past two decades all 50 states have ratified Dr. King day as an official holiday.
2. antonia p April 30, 2023 at 2:41 pm

   2. The first misconception is that the demonstrations from 1955-1968 were the first of their kind. This is saying all the civil rights demonstrations were the first to deal with race. The second misconception is that most Americans supported the protests and their leaders. We should all know this is false as we learned that before the Children’s March, only 5% of Americans believed Civil Rights was the most important issue in America. The third misconception is that said issues being protested were quickly exposed and vanquished hatred. As we know, these protests were not a one-and-done deal. The final misconception is that they all ended happily and brought racial equality to America. Everyone should know this is wrong as even today we have BLM protests proving the Civil Rights protests and act did not fix everything.

   3. After Plessy had refused to move from his seat, he was charged and challenged the Jim Crow laws. After the Plessy decision, many states in the South passed public transportation segregation laws. It was because of these laws that Rosa Parks got arrested.

   4. Kenneth Clark led 30 male Harvard students to sit in at a House restaurant. I think the author includes these because it’s important to show that not just the popular demonstrations led the Civil Rights movement. Plessy led to states passing public-transportation segregation laws. If I’m being honest I didn’t even know there was someone in specific that led to the creation of the law.

   7. During the time the U.S. hated communists, so calling 2 big Civil Rights leaders a “communist” would make many hate them/hate them more. People like Edgar J. Hoover who testified to Congress and spread the false rumor that there was “communist influence in the civil rights movement”. Reagan had twisted King’s words and Trump’s press secretary used King’s words to praise law enforcement. Even with these we still view King and Parks as American heroes. They are treated as heroes as many of today’s youth themselves view them as role models.

   8. Reagan and McEanny used King to support their agenda by twisting his words. With everyone seeing him as a huge figure of freedom using him would also twist his views. Conservatives wanted to change his legacy. When Reagan said King would be against affirmative action, then quoted his infamous “I Have a Dream” speech, to make him seem deceiving to the world.
3. Ireland K. April 30, 2023 at 2:54 pm

   2.) During the time period of 1955 to 1968 there were many misconceptions about the Civil Rights Movement. The first misconception would be that these demonstrations from 1955 to 1968 were the first of their kind. For example, Pauli Murray, a Howard University law student, led a sit-in movement in 1943 and 1944. Murray perfected the “stool sitting technique,” the method of nonviolent confrontation inside privately owned restaurants, with robust picketing outside, all trademarks of the protesters from Greensboro’s universities who took their own seats on Woolworth’s lunch-counter stools seventeen years later. This action as well as others during this time ultimately led to the classical phase of the movement. This demonstrates that winning civil rights was much more difficult than most Americans believe and that African Americans had always fought for equality. A second misconception about the CRM was that most Americans gave their support to the protests and their leaders. This means that Americans idolized the leaders of these movements such as MLK. But this is far from the truth because they were in fact villainized and accused of being communists. So not all people agreed with this movement and their leaders. A third misconception about the CRM is that they quickly exposed and vanquished hatred. But the protests in fact were just like how classical-phase protests were, and had always been, about issues other than simply abolishing segregation. Police brutality, economic equity, voting rights, and cultural symbols have always been on the civil rights agenda. The last misconception about the CRM is that they ended happily by bringing racial equality to America. Overall this movement was not near finished, which is clear due to the issues that remain on the national agenda. In conclusion, although full equality has not yet been reached this movement helped lay the groundwork for the establishment of fundamental reforms. Examples of this include: Legal segregation as a system of racial control was dismantled, and blacks were no longer subject to the humiliation of Jim Crow Laws. So through victories in the courts and the success of sit-ins and other nonviolent protests, African Americans have slowly begun to win their battle for civil rights.

   4.) One example of a resistance sit-in that occurred before the first ones honored in the classic phase would be one initiated by Pauli Murray, a Howard University law student. He led a sit-in movement in 1943 and 1944. Murray perfected the “stool sitting technique,” the method of nonviolent confrontation inside privately owned restaurants, with robust picketing outside, all trademarks of the protesters from Greensboro’s universities who took their own seats on Woolworth’s lunch-counter stools seventeen years later. I believe that the reason that the author included this example and others is because they set an example for future sit-ins and the more famous ones impact (on the CRM). Sit-ins are one of the most successful forms of nonviolent protests. They stop the flow of business, therefore drawing more attention to their cause. Then if arrested, this helped further the effect of sympathy for the protestors. Therefore invoking attention to their desire for justice.

   7.) Today both Rosa Parks and MLK are icons of the Civil Rights Movement. But back then, during the CRM, they were both smeared as communists. Conservative and mainstream politicians smeared King as a “communist” throughout his career. Federal Bureau of Investigation Director J. Edgar Hoover testified to Congress that there was “communistic influence infiltration in the civil rights movement.” Mainstream columnist Joseph Alsop wrote in the Washington Post that King ignored FBI warnings about communists in the movement. As late as 1966, the FBI continued to pursue what it saw as communist activities within the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Both King and Parks came under fire when they visited the Highlander Folk School, which white southerners called a “Communist training school”, but in fact wasn’t. Both being vilified in the past, now both King and Parks have become role models whom most Americans claim as icons. An example of this including MLK having an official holiday, that has been ratified by all 50 states.

   15.) Some white people were having trouble with BLM protests in the 2010s and 2020s because many white Americans came to believe that it is acceptable to ask for admission to a system but not to challenge its structure, if it continues to disadvantage minorities. But by the late 2010s, protesters sought structural change. People of all ethnicities routinely used the terms systemic racism, racial capitalism, and police violence, but others spoke of snowflakes, socialism, cancel culture, Blue Lives Matter, and law and order. Nonetheless, some historians have found ways to honor the demonstrations of the classical phase of the civil rights movement without drawing vast divides among them, and those that followed them.

   16.) I think that some people were critical of the protests against police violence in the summer and fall of 2020 mainly because of the 2020 presidential election. Especially that summer, Trump and Republican allies mounted a law-and-order campaign that painted national protests against police brutality as un-American, violent, anarchist, and the Democrats’ fault. Nonetheless, there is some evidence that recent protests worked. In the midst of the Republican attacks on protests in September 2020, a Washington Post poll offered a glimpse of Americans coming to terms with the protests of the recent past. Some 63 percent of Americans-73 percent of Democrats and 36 percent of Republicans—”support athletes speaking out [and] say anthem protests are appropriate. Overall this means that minds change, and society and institutions change with them.
4. Lauren M. April 30, 2023 at 3:54 pm

   2: Modern Retellings of the civil rights movement paint it as a short, effective, and decisive movement that easily gained the support of most Americans, however, this narrative is incorrect and undermines the long and continued struggle of Americans of Color. Firstly, many believe the civil rights movement was a new and standalone event. However, Black Americans have fought against segregation and discrimination since the 1890s, and before that their basic freedom, showing that the fight for racial equality has been a long and difficult one. Second, the civil rights era was not completely supported by Americans. Many whites and even some African Americans opposed the movement or saw it as ineffective, and the heroes we celebrate today were exceedingly antagonized for their work. Thirdly, while the civil rights movement was geared toward legal change, it encompassed all forms of racial inequality and violence, much of which was not removed by legislation. Forth, Americans of all races continue to experience racial discrimination from individuals and institutions alike, and the idea that the civil rights movement “fixed everything” undercuts that continued struggle.
   4: One example of resistance to transportation segregation the author is Pauli Murray. Murray was a young black woman in Petersburg, Virginia, in 1940, and was charged and convicted of disorderly conduct for refusing to stay seated at the back of the bus. She refused to pay the fine and thus spent time in jail. Murray’s story directly parallels that of Rosa Parks and is used to emphasize that while Rosa Parks’ actions were defiant, impactful, and highly symbolic, she was not the first to do so, merely the first recognized.
   5: There is a common misconception that white racists were not aware of their actions and discrimination before the civil rights era. While this is true, in a sense, since blatant racism was the social standard, and children were taught that this was the “normal” order of things. However, it is entirely unbelievable that white people did not make the conscious choice to exclude and discriminate against Americans of Color. It is entirely unbelievable that white lawmakers did not deliberately create legislation to limit their interaction with African Americans.
   7: While Dr. King and Parks should be celebrated as heroes, the way they are painted to obscure the controversy and struggle that they faced has covered a major part of the story. Especially during the cold war, a common fear of communism and its spies was used to discourage endorsement of the civil rights movement by comparing it to the communist enemies. The actions of civil rights activists were not always welcomed with open arms and the modern heroic narrative obscures that fact.
   8: Both Reagan and McEnany quoted Dr. King out of context in order to support their own agendas. Reagan falsified Dr. Kings message of non-violence as one that opposed affirmative action. McEnany, similarly, quoted Dr. King’s line saying that “we must learn to live as brothers” in an appraisal of law enforcement aggression against the black lives matter movement without mentioning his continued message against police brutality.
5. Enzo Morucci April 30, 2023 at 5:01 pm

   2. There are 4 main misconceptions relating to the civil rights movement. First, that the demonstrations from 1955-1968 were the first. For example, most people believe that Rosa Parks was the first to challenge segregated transportation, when Homer Plessy did something very similar 63 years prior, who is forgotten nowadays, and Rosa Parks’ bus boycott was also based on many other examples of resistance. Second, that most Americans supported the movement and its leaders. 36% of white people believed MLK Jr. helped the cause, and 72% had unfavorable opinions of him. In regards to the cause in general, 85% of whites believed that the protests helped their cause, and so did 30% of African Americans, so the movement was not an accepted occurrence in most people’s eyes, and it was believed to be communistic. Third, that they quickly exposed and eliminated hatred. The protests had been happening for 100 years, and that was only the protests for equal rights and not those against slavery, which occurred for far longer. The hatred ran deep, and it wasn’t exposed or eliminated in the span of a decade. Finally, the idea that they ended in happily ever after by bringing racial equality. There is a belief that such “good” protests were only done to eliminate segregation, and when it was eliminated that everything is now sunshine and rainbows, and they are ignorant of the continued privilege of whites.

   3. Alabama’s reaction to Homer Plessy’s refusal to move to another seat set up an expectation of what was to be done in that situation, for both sides. The states and those asking the countless African Americans (who did the same) to move set a precedent and an expectation for African Americans planning to stay seated where they wished. Rosa Parks knew what she was going to do and what would happen to her when she entered the bus before she even did it, because she had the examples of so many of those that did it before her. She knew she would be arrested as it happened with Homer Plessy, and she did it specifically because of that, to bring support and attention to the movement.

   5. With the question worded in such a manner, anyone would realize how improbable that situation is. The issue, however, is that people don’t think about it for long enough to come to that conclusion. They simply accept what they were told as truth, and since what they were told is that the protests lasted 10 years before everything turned out fine, they believed that and moved on. Then they end up not believing the continuing issues today because it doesn’t fit what they were taught in school, and people have a tendency to ignore things that don’t fit the narrative they believe.

   6. The numbers of the 1966 poll partially surprised me. I expected the results regarding white people, because at that time racism was much higher than nowadays, and even though slavery was ended, most people believed African Americans to be inferior to them in certain ways, and they also believed that African Americans were either going too fast with the protests, or they believed that they didn’t need to protests as they are already legally equals. Not enough time had passed for the majority of whites to have simply changed their beliefs. However, what did shock me was that 30% of African Americans believed civil rights demonstrations were not aiding the cause. That meant that if you spoke to 3 African Americans at random at that time period, chances are one of them doesn’t believe in the protests. I’m not sure what they believed was the better option or why they held such opinions, but it shocked me that so many thought that way.

   7. The only reason I can imagine that there was such a change in portrayal of Parks and King, from communists to heroes, is because of when these events occurred relative to each time period. Back then, both of them were attempting to shake up the order of things, and get what African Americans rightfully deserved, but because what they wanted threatened to bring change, something people are deathly afraid of, they were vilified. However, nowadays, they are hailed as heroes because the views of the general public have shifted more to the side of King and Parks, but mostly because the change already happened, so what they did doesn’t mean change, which makes it much easier for people to see them as heroes.
6. Jackson Mush April 30, 2023 at 6:28 pm

   2. The four misconceptions of the CRM movement include; The CRM was the first of its kind, that most Americans gave their support to the protests and their leaders, that they quickly exposed and diminished racial hatred and, they ended racial inequality in America.

   3. Homer Plessy had done the same action that Rosa Parks did but 63 years apart. They both had refused to participate in segregated transportation. In 1892 when Plessy refused to give up their seat, many others followed, leading to a southern law of segregated public transportation. A few years later in Alabama 1903, the city outlawed boycotting public transportation’s segregation rules. As time went on and the CRM grew, in 1955 Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat. She had followed the direct influence of Homer Plessy but over 60 years later.

   4. An example of a protest that took place before the classic phase was a daily protest of segregated buses 15 years before Rosa Parks. For example, In Virginia 1940, Pauli Murray had been studying nonviolent protesting techniques and eventually refused to give up her seat on a bus. After her conviction, she chose to spend time in jail rather than paying a fine. Another similar case that also happened in Virginia was the conviction of Irene Morgan. Irene refused to give up her seat on the bus in 1944, boycotting the transportation segregation law. I think the author included these lesser known examples to show that even before the famous activists we know of had boycotted, many black people had been boycotting for years before. This can also show how many of the famous boycotters of the classic phase took ideas and inspiration from the lesser known boycotters of years before.

   7. When both Dr. King and Parks were alive, many conservatives tarnished their reputations by branding them as communists. Some ways that these two were seen as communists was when FBI director J. Edgar Hoover testified before congress that there was “communistic influence infiltration in the CRM”. Other journalists wrote that King had ignored FBI warnings about communist being involved with the CRM. King and Parks had also visited Highlander Folk School, a school that was nicknamed, “Communist training school”. As time went on from the CRM, Park and King have only been remembered as heroes, not communists. This is due to their giant influence on the CRM and how they braved racial inequality through non-violent protests.

   8. A way Ronald Reagen used King’s words to support his own agenda was by saying how Dr. King would have opposed affirmative action. In this case Regean wanted to push his belief of what discrimination was in the workforce. Reagan used words from Dr. King’s speech that would support his own argument but go against what Dr. King fought for. Another example of this is seen with Press Secretary McEnany. McEnany used King’s speeches to argue for her belief of praising the law enforcement. Dr. King would have never supported the violence that the law enforcement has used against protesters. Despite his beliefs, he was still quoted to support something he would not have believed in for McEnany’s own gain.
7. Titus Smith May 1, 2023 at 7:56 am

   2) From 1955 to 1968, there were some misconceptions about the Civil Rights Movement. People thought these protests were the first of their kind, but that’s not true. A student named Pauli Murray actually led sit-ins back in 1943 and 1944. Murray’s “stool sitting technique” was the same method used by protesters at Woolworth’s lunch counters in Greensboro years later. These demonstrations paved the way for the classical phase of the movement and showed that the fight for civil rights was ongoing. Another misconception was that everyone in America supported the protests and their leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. But that’s not the case either. Many people actually accused these leaders of being communists, and not everyone agreed with the movement. People also thought the protests quickly ended racial hatred, but that wasn’t the whole story. These demonstrations weren’t just about segregation but also about police brutality, economic equity, voting rights, and cultural symbols, and even though the Civil Rights Movement didn’t bring full equality to America, it did lead to some important reforms. Legal segregation was dismantled, and Jim Crow Laws were abolished, which was a big step in the right direction.
   4) There were actually some sit-ins that happened before the more well-known ones during the classic phase of the Civil Rights Movement. Pauli Murray, a law student at Howard University, led a sit-in movement back in 1943 and 1944. He was the one who came up with the “stool sitting technique,” where protestors would sit at privately owned restaurants and peacefully confront segregation. They would also have strong picketing going on outside the restaurant, which is something that we saw in the famous sit-ins at Woolworths seventeen years later. I think the reason why the author included this example is because it set a good example for future sit-ins and helped inspire the more famous ones that we all know about. Sit-ins are actually one of the most effective forms of nonviolent protest because they disrupt business and draw attention to the protestors’ cause. And if the protestors get arrested, it often leads to even more sympathy for their cause. So by looking at examples like Pauli Murray’s sit-in, we can see how sit-ins played a big role in the Civil Rights Movement and how they helped draw attention to the fight for justice.

   6) The numbers from a poll taken in 1966 caught me off guard. I wasn’t too surprised by the results for white people because racism was very popular back then. Even though slavery was abolished, a lot of people still thought African Americans were inferior in certain ways. Some people even believed that they didn’t need to protest anymore because they were already legally equal. But what surprised me about the data was that 30% of African Americans surveyed didn’t think civil rights protests were helpful. That means that out of three random African Americans you talked to back then, one of them probably didn’t support the protests. I don’t know what those people thought was a better option or why they felt that way, but it surprised me that so many of them felt that way.
   7) Today, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks are significant figures of the Civil Rights Movement. They’re known for standing up to segregation and racism, and we all think of them as these courageous heroes. However, back when they were alive, some people in the South were calling them communists. They did this to make it seem like they were against communism and not just against racial inequality. Sadly, this tactic actually worked in some cases. People even started calling African American schools in the Deep South “communist training schools.” After Dr. King and Rosa Parks died, some of the future presidents tried to smear their reputations. But luckily, their legacies have made a comeback in recent years. In fact, in the past couple of decades, all 50 states have officially recognized Dr. King Day as a holiday. It just goes to show that even though some people tried to discredit their work, their impact on the Civil Rights Movement is still celebrated and remembered today.
   8) President Ronald Reagan and Press Secretary McEnany used Dr. King’s words to support their agendas. Reagan claimed that Dr. King would have opposed affirmative action, which is untrue and went against Dr. King’s fight for equality in the workforce. Similarly, McEnany praised law enforcement using Dr. King’s speeches, even though Dr. King would have never supported the violence used against protesters. Both individuals twisted Dr. King’s words to serve their own interests, which goes against the true meaning behind Dr. King’s message.
8. Lindsay kennedy May 1, 2023 at 9:13 am

   2.The misconceptions that the author outlines are as follows, the 1955-1968 protest were a first, majority of Americans supported the CRM movement,the movement swiftly targeted and conquered hatred, and that the movement concluded with racial equality in america. Firstly, the CRM protest was not the first. The timeline of 1955-1968 gives the false narrative that the fight for equality was a brief and successful battle. In contrast the struggle for equality started long before 1955. For example transportation protests started before Rosa parks in 1955 with Homer plessy and others around 1892. Secondly, most Americans at the time did not rally behind the CRM. King was painted as communist and 72% of white Americans felt negatively towards him. Third hatred wasn’t quickly identified and destroyed, it was a much longer struggle. Every aspect of African Americans’ lives were put at a disadvantage. Lastly the CRM movement did not end racial inequality, in fact racial inequality is still prevalent in 2023. A great example of this is the recent BLM protest.

   3. As a result of Homer Plessy and others in 1892, public segregation laws were passed. When Plessy, 63 years before parks, refused to give up his seat he was arrested and tried. This trial led to the famous Pessy v Ferguson case which established the principle of “separate but equal”. This principle allowed for segregation. This was the principal Rosa Protested against. Therefore Plessy’s court case ruling of legal segregation directly influenced parks arrest.

   4. The author includes movements prior to 1955 to destroy one of the four CRM misconceptions, that the CRM protests were a first. Fifteen years before Rosa Parks’ protest Black southerners protested daily on transportation. In 1940 Pauli Murray did the same exact thing as Rosa. She refused to move from her seat and was arrested. To make a point Murray didn’t pay the fine and instead sat in jail. There are so many more events that took place prior to 1955, they just didn’t catch fire like Rosa Parks did, mainly because they didn’t have the backing of an organization/

   8. Both President Rhegan and McEnany manipulated the king’s words to gain the favor of those who stood behind the king and his Beliefs. Using king to further their agendas made them appear more likable and open minded. Rhegan quoted King when talking about affirmative action on race to show that king was against affirmative action when this was not true. Rhegan took King’s words out of context and gave them a new meaning, a false meaning. McEanny also decided to quote the king when speaking in favor of brutal law enforcement against BLM protestors.(This blows my mind) If anything King would support BLM protest because there is an echo from the past, his past. Context played a big role in MckEnney quoting because she only included the part favorable to her, not the next line that contradicted her point.

   10. Ella baker expressed that sit ins at restaurants were not about food but about segregation. This segregation and racial inequality was in every aspect of African Americans’ life, not just restaurants. Essentially these protests had a much larger meaning. She emphasized the feelings of inferiority and lack of freedom. Baker’s speech targets structural racism just like the BLM movement. Both movements focused on a centerpiece issue and expanded on it. Baker referenced hamburgers and BLM referenced individuals who lost their lives. Baker used restaurant inequality to point out inequality in all aspects in life. BLM used individuals to point out police brutality and discrimination.
9. Addison Wolfe May 1, 2023 at 11:16 am

   2. A main misconception about the CRM is that people think that it was the first movement of its kind. Many think that this was the beginning movement that was pushing for rights for everyone, but this is untrue. Many people before had pushed for African Americans’ equal rights, and this was just a bigger continuation of this idea. Another misconception is that all Americans had the same opinions about this movement. This is untrue because most white Americans disagreed with it, they thought it was a pointless movement. It wasn’t accepted by everyone and it was extremely controversial, especially between political groups and races. The third misconception is that it was a quick and easy movement. The CRM actually took over 20 years and people were put through violence, death, and tons of pain during their street protests and silent protests. The last misconception is that after the CRM was over, all of the problems relating to segregation and civil rights were over. This was not the case, and blacks still had to fight for years for the movement to actually end. People today are still facing some of the same issues they faced in the 20th century as well.
   4. One example of a bus boycott before Rosa Parks was Pauli Murray. She was a black woman who was charged for disorderly conduct in Petersburg, Virginia because she refused to stay at the back of the bus and wanted to be in the front instead. She spent time in jail instead of paying the fine. I think the author put this example in to show that there had already been some CR movements going on before the actual movement in the late 20th century, and there had always been resistance going on.
   5. This narrative that white people just somehow finally understood what was going on with segregation and became aware of it is completely untrue. Although they may have actually become allies in 1955, there is no way that they just had no idea. Many people were just turning a blind eye to what was going on, and then as soon as more people began to agree with the ideas of the CRM, they decided they could change their minds and be nice again.
   6. The numbers of the 1966 poll did surprise me a little bit. I thought it was interesting that about 30% of African American people didn’t think that the protests and movements going on were enough to work towards equal rights. It’s just crazy to me how many black people didn’t believe in this effort, or even just thought that not enough was happening. It also makes me feel like a lot of these people had probably given up at this point at decided they should just accept their fate of being discriminated against at that point.
   7. Rosa Parks and MLK were both smeared as communists and generally disliked during the actual Civil Rights Movement, but now are liked by almost everyone. I think the reason why is that people like to follow the crowd, and as soon as many people agree with what’s going on, it will swing the rest of the population to do the same. They did many types of research and studying to find evidence that Parks and King were communists, but nothing came up anyway.
   8. President Reagan misused King’s quote for his own benefit because they wanted to twist his words. If you only talk about a certain part of someone’s speech, then you can make anyone look bad to give different perspectives of them. He wanted people to look at him in a better way, so he made MLK look bad instead.
10. Ryan Cifolelli May 1, 2023 at 1:16 pm

    2. Describe the four misconceptions of the CRM from 1955 to 1968.

    There were four major misconceptions relating to the civil rights movement from 1955 to 1968. The first major misconception was that demonstrations from 1955 to 1968 were the first of their kind. This is a major misconception as there was a struggle to get civil rights way before 1955. African Americans were searching for civil rights for a long time way before 1955 occurred. For example in 1940 in Petersburg, Virginia a young African American woman by the name of Pauli Murray refused to sit down in the back as an act of nonviolent protest. She was eventually arrested and instead of paying the fine she opted to go to jail. Secondly, the second misconception was that many Americans gave their support to the protests and their leaders. Though, history suggests that the heroes we see today like Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks were hated by many people. Furthermore, people like Martin Luther King Jr. who played a huge role in the civil rights movement were heavily scrutinized back in the day and a lot of people against the civil rights movement heavily disliked him. Third, that the civil rights movement quickly exposed and eliminated the wrong doings. This is a major misconception as the fight for civil rights took a very long time and started way back in the 1890s. Also, there is still a lot of discrimination and inequality that African Americans still face today and even after all this time discrimination still continues. Lastly, is that everything ended up perfect and there is perfect racial equality in America. This is so wrong as the Black Lives Matter movement is still a large movement set on trying to get equal rights for African Americans so clearly there is not perfect racial equality. There is obviously not perfect racial equality and many people still face racial discrimination.

    3. How did Alabama’s reaction to Homer Plessy’s protest on a segregated Louisiana train car directly lead to Rosa Parks’ arrest over 50 years later?

    The state of Alabama’s reaction to Homer Plessy’s protests on a segregated Louisiana train car directly led to Rosa Park’s arrest over 50 years later. In Homer Plessy’s Louisiana train car protest she was told to get up from her train car and move to the back, but she did not and she fought the discriminatory system that was put against her. Similarly, Rosa Parks stopped and did not move from the front of the bus to the back to prove that it is stupid that people of different color have to sit in different color areas even though everyone should be equal. Alabama’s reaction to Plessy’s protest directly led to Park’s arrest because everyone saw how big a scene was made of Plessy’s protest. The arrest 50 years before was a direct lead to Rosa Parks arrest because everyone saw how big of a scene was made and what could come out of a famous protest. Rosa Parks knew that she would get arrested, but she would be backed up by a large civil rights movement that would try its best to protect her. Alabama’s reaction to Plessy led to Rosa parks arrest due to the planning of a large -scale publicity stunt to gain support for the effort of the civil rights movement.

    4. Provide at least one example of resistance to segregated busing and sit-ins that had happened BEFORE the first ones honored in the classic phase. Why has the author included these examples?

    One example of resistance to segregated busing and sit-ins was Pauli Murray and it happened before the ones honored in the classical phase. In Virginia, Pauli Murray was a young black woman who had been studying nonviolent techniques. She then refused to stay seated in the back of a bus in 1940 in Petersburg, Virginia. She was then convicted for not listening when she got asked to be seated on the bus due to disorderly conduct. After that, she chose to go to jail instead of paying a fine to prove a point about the treatment that African Americans are receiving on public transport. The author has included these examples in the reading because he is trying to prove a point about the first misconception listed that the movements were the first of their kind. The author has included these examples in order to prove the misconceptions wrong that these classical movements were the first of their kind even though they occurred earlier. These examples show how the bus boycotts and disobeying oppressing laws happened way before the classical period as this happened during 1940

    5. The classic narrative of the CRM suggests, according to the author, that white people just suddenly became aware of the evils of segregation in 1955, and that a small group of whites became allies in the struggle to end segregation. How believable is this scenario?0
    This is not a very believable situation as many white people probably knew how badly African American people were being treated, but they didn’t care about the discrimination many African Americans had to go through. In the article, it portrays many different types of protests before, in the middle of, and after the classical movement of the civil rights movement. Many different protests like Rosa Parks bus boycott and the train car boycott done by Homer Plessy were very noticeable and many white people definitely saw what they were fighting for. This scenario that white people just suddenly became aware of the fight for civil rights is a very dumb argument as it had been going on for 70 years. Many African Americans had devoted their whole life to the cause of ending segregation and making everything equal for all. For author to make the
    The argument that many white people did not know that black people were sacrificing their own lives and work for white people not to understand what they were fighting for is dumb. This is a scapegoat used by the author in order to justify a lot of white people’s actions before and during the civil rights movement.

    12. Why do you think the author compared baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson to Colin Kaepernick?

    I think that the author compared baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson to Colin Kaepernick to show many African Americans are still dealing with problems like discrimination from the civil rights movement to now. By comparing these two athletes the author was trying to show how the fourth misconception about the civil rights movement is totally wrong. The fourth misconception is that all the problems from the classical era to now were solved during the civil rights movement. Though the author compares Jackie Robinson to Colin Kaepernick to show how many African Americans are still protesting to show how they feel police violence and some laws still are discriminatory. The author shows how many people condemned Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling during the national anthem even though many people during the classical era protested unjust things. The author is comparing the two to show how similar their two forms of protests were but how differently they’re treated. He shows how Jackie Robinson was shown as a hero fighting for his rights. Though, Kaepernick was shown as unjustly disrespecting the country. The author compared the two to show how there are still many problems in the United States when it comes to race, but he also uses it in order to show that many protests nowadays are getting branded as unjust.
11. Noel Borgquist May 1, 2023 at 1:38 pm

    Describe the four misconceptions of the CRM from 1955-1968.

    Four misconceptions that the Author brings up regarding the CRM from 1955 – 1968 were that the demonstrations were the first of their kind, that most Americans gave their support to the protests and their leaders, that they quickly exposed and vanquished hatred, and that they ended happily by bringing racial equality to America. These four misconceptions all serve to over romanticize, and create a fantasy world where the civil rights movement ended in the most ideal way, with little resistance. As mentioned, one large misconception is that the entirety of America sided with the CRM and worked with leaders like King to vanquish racism. But many Americans did see the civil rights issue as a major problem in the country at all, and instead saw issues like the spread of communism as taking precedence over the issue of racial equality.

    How did Alabama’s reaction to Homer Plessy’s protest on a segregated Louisiana train car directly lead to Rosa Parks’ arrest over 50 years later?

    Despite occurring almost 60 years prior to the arrest of Rosa Parks, the protest, and subsequent decision reached in the Plessy v. Ferguson’s decision went on to directly lead to the arrest of Rosa Parks in 1955. Homer Plessy was traveling on a segregated train car, and refused to get up and leave the train car he was in to move to the colored section. Plessy was arrested, and then went on to sue the presiding judge who had ruled over his case, arguing that his equal protection rights under the 14th amendment had been violated when he was discriminated against in the train car. However, SCOTUS did not agree with him, and ruled against him. They decided that segregated train cars were permissible, as long as they were equally maintained; therefore, he had not been discriminated against. This court case was extremely significant, as it set the precedent that Jim Crow laws were constitutional under the prerequisite that the accommodations for white and black Americans were equal, which they believed to be true. How does this all affect Rosa Parks? Well, this landmark SCOTUS decision led to Jim Crow laws being passed, one such law being passed in Montgomery Alabama that prohibited boycotting, picketing, or interfering with lawful business. This law was used to directly strike back against the black residents of Montgomery who had been boycotting segregated transportation laws that had been passed shortly after the Plessy decision. This law would be used as justification for the arrest of Rosa Parks on December 1, 1955.

    Provide at least one example of resistance to segregated busing and sit-ins that had happened BEFORE the first ones honored in the classic phase. Why has the author included these examples?

    One example of civil rights protests prior to the classic phase is the bus boycotts that took place 50 years prior to Rosa Parks’ boycott in her hometown of Montgomery Alabama. In response to the city passing segregation laws, Black residents responded with petitions, mass meetings, and a two-year-long boycott and picketing. The author mentions this example of civil disobedience to Jim Crow policies to highlight their point that the CRM was not isolated to simply the years of the 1950s to the late 1960s. It was a wide spanning movement that crossed the country, and had been ongoing since the defeat of the Reconstruction movement in the late 1870s. Through their usage of examples of prior protests to Jim Crow era laws, the author backs up their four main misconceptions of the CRM with real time examples, that show the challenges that the protesters of the earlier and neglected times of the CRM faced.

    Overall, the author makes many distinctions between the true nature of the CRM and the fantastical narrative that we learn in schools. Through examples like the 1900 bus boycotts, the author shows the change throughout the entire 65+ years of the CRM.
12. Augusten L May 1, 2023 at 4:57 pm

    1. How have American protests, whether individually or in groups, been treated in our history books?
    American protests are treated as heroic acts in history textbooks. The textbooks celebrate the protests, and show them as Americans pushing for what is right. Protests in history are generally framed as patriotic, as they are fighting for freedom, which is something that the United States prides itself on having for everyone. Because the US was created from a rebellion against unfair British rule, protesting and rebelling is often seen as an American quality, at least when the protests make the US seem like the “good guy” who fixed an issue. Many protests were not viewed this way at the time that they occurred, like when people said that Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks were communists, but textbooks usually don’t include that part of the protests.

    2. Describe the four misconceptions of the CRM from 1955-1968.
    The four misconceptions of the Civil Rights Movement from 1955 to 1968 are that the protests were the first of their kind, that Americans supported these protests, that they quickly got rid of hatred, and that they ended happily achieving racial equality. The first misconception mentioned, thinking that the civil rights movements in the 1950s and 60s, was clearly untrue, as many African Americans had been fighting for their rights for a much longer time. Later in the article, it gives a few examples of people who protested civil rights before this more well known time period, like Pauli Murray and Irene Morgan. It also addresses how the protests were not widely supported by Americans when they took place, and how even people we see as heroes today were rumored to be communist or seen as un-American for their protests. The third and fourth misconceptions listed, about quickly vanquishing hatred and gaining equality, can be proved wrong. Even in the current times, there are many issues with racism and discrimination, which shows that even though it was greatly significant in gaining rights, the Civil Rights Movement did not fix every injustice that African Americans faced and still face.

    6. How surprising are the poll numbers from 1966 about the country’s perception of the CRM to you? Explain.
    The poll numbers from 1966 were considerably surprising to me because I never realized that Martin Luther King Jr. received that much backlash and lack of support. I definitely didn’t expect to learn that seventy two percent of white people “had an unfavorable opinion” of him because he is often seen as one of the most important Americans in history. I know that he is definitely highly respected and inspiring to many people today, so I was surprised that people’s opinions of him were so different back then.

    13. What did the Pew Research Center find out about American attitudes in August 2020?
    Pew Research Center found out that Americans’ views on their fight to peacefully protest and Americans’ free speech were concerningly negative. It reported that about 40% didn’t think that Americans could “count on their right to peacefully protest” and large numbers of people also thought that the right to protest was not safe. This shows how Amerians views on their own ability to have the right to protest are influenced by the reactions to protests, especially from police and police brutality. The research also found that sixty percent of participants thought that the US did not protect the rights and freedoms of all people, which is shockingly high statistics and proves that the US truly needs improvement.

    15. According to the author, why were some white people having trouble with BLM protests in the 2010s and 2020s?
    According to the author, some white people were having trouble with the Black Lives Matter protests because they didn’t think that there was still inequality based on race in the US in modern times. As mentioned with the four main misconceptions about the Civil Rights Movement, some people think that the Civil Rights Movement solved all the problems with racism and equal rights. This causes people to believe that the US doesn’t have issues with racism anymore, so they see no reason for people protesting for the Black Lives Matter movement.
13. MIller Mann May 1, 2023 at 5:25 pm

    How have American protests, whether individually or in groups, been treated in our history books?
    The American Protest, as a right has been widely celebrated in our history books throughout the life of American History. Protests such as the coveted “Boston Tea Party” have been celebrated since they were completed. Over the years, History books have described the people in riots and other forms of protest as some sort of American heroes, whether they actually were or not didn’t really matter, all that seemed to matter to the history books as if their goals were successful. Since the Old, righteous protests of the past, protests have begun to be much more heavily challenged by the media, such as the rightful condemnation of Donald Trump’s raid on the capitol after the lost election.

    Describe the four misconceptions of the CRM from 1955-1968.
    The Civil Rights Movement and its duration gave name to a new era, as many historians call it, the “Classical Phase” of US history. This can be problematic at times when we look at some of the misconceptions about CRM over the years. Firstly that the CRM employed the tactics of peaceful protest for the first time. Another is that they were widely supported by the majority of US citizens. The next being that the protests of the CRM were quick, and had shown results fast as they exposed corruption quickly. And lastly that the people in the protests all had happy endings, that brought racial equality to the nation. These, of course, are all false, the protesters faced unbelievable hardships during their time of protest and most did not live happily ever after.

    How did Alabama’s reaction to Homer Plessy’s protest on a segregated Louisiana train car directly lead to Rosa Parks’ arrest over 50 years later?
    Over the years after Homer Plessy’s arrest after not switching trolleys, Alabama had changed for the worse. In the trial of Plessy, he made it to the supreme court, which eventually voted to allow the Jim Crow laws in America. Plessy inspired many others to commit similar acts of protest, and he most likely inspired Rosa to do the very same thing on a bus, just 50 years later.
    How did some states crack down on the right to protest in 2021? Why do you think that they did this?
    In 2021, 8 states passed legislation to put a damper on the right to protest. Mainly in the south, states like Oklahoma and Florida imposed new rules such as ones that threaten you with jail time if you block traffic during a protest. States such as Arkansas, went even broader, if you protest near critical infrastructure, you could face jail time. Overall I think many of these states saw the protests that happened in 2020 and did not want to cause a problem for many people that rely on the roads and similar things every morning, I don’t think they did it with any malice intent, while some most likely did, as a whole I believe that the majority were simply trying to keep their cities under control. (Apart from Oklahoma, a driver hitting a protester and not being liable seems like a problem)

    Why do you think some people were critical of the protests against police violence in the summer and fall of 2020?
    Likely the biggest reason was that some of the acts performed by the protesters were not in relation to the police, so it didn’t seem to make a ton of sense due to the fact that these people had nothing to do with what had happened. I believe that the people that were against the protests were most likely against the ones that turned violent and this hate was likely caused by the highly negative media on the violence but lacking media on the “good” protests, as it is said in the article. Overall, the people against the protests most likely only saw the bad in the protests and didn’t realize the root problem in order to understand why they were necessary.
14. Giovanni Baldini May 1, 2023 at 5:55 pm

    1. It greatly depends. All protests that ended up successful and are strongly supported by a large majority of the population are clearly shown proudly and brightly in history books. These usually are the ones that are kind of mild and definitely give those against the movement a bad look. But, things that are closely on the fence of whether they are supported more than frowned upon, and more importantly were more recent, which makes them more controversial, can be portrayed negatively and positively, depending on the location and opinion of the author.

    2. The four misconceptions and why are that the demonstrations from 1955 to 1968 were the first of their kind, which is a misconception because the CRM has been going on since reconstruction and is still going on today, that most Americans gave their support to the protests and their leaders, which is a misconception because many people at that time, especially in the south, were strongly against equal rights and desegregation, that they quickly exposed and vanquished hatred, which is obviously a misconception since it took many years to even desegregate and there is still an unequal amount of hate against minorities, and that they ended happily by bringing racial equality to America, which, once again, is not a misconception since we are still fighting for better equality and treatment for African Americans today.

    3. The way they led to each other was because Homer Plessy’s protest was almost completely identical to Rosa Park’s protest. Both of them got on some form of segregated transport and refused to move for a White to sit where they were sitting and ended up being arrested. If Plessy didn’t do his protest, there is a possibility that Rosa Parks wouldn’t have either, especially since it wasn’t just these two, but also many others in between the two who did the same/a similar thing.

    6. The results, which were that only 36% of white people thought Martin Luther King was helping the cause and 72 % of white people had an unfavorable opinion about him, were initially surprising to me. To the average person nowadays, this is plain stupid, and it seems extremely ridiculous that anyone would actually argue that MLK wasn’t helping CRM or that he was a bad person. Even though we have a ways to go for CRM, MLK did more than a lot to help excel African Americans’ civil rights. However, the longer I thought about this, I realize now that before and during this period, when CRM is most talked about, it is decently known knowledge that many white people were racist or at least against CRM, especially right-wing whites. So, with that said, it wasn’t extremely surprising that a majority of white people were not supporting MLK.

    7. Parks and King were smeared as communists mainly for one reason; back then, many conservative politicians did this to discredit and hijack his credibility and power. In some ways, however thin they may be, you can connect CRM to communism since both result in all people being equal, even though CRM is only for civil and social rights, not economic status like how communism is. This meant these politicians could really scare and affect some people and get them to go against both MLK and Parks. This especially applies to white people that are prejudiced toward African Americans.
15. Ray Glory-Ejoyokah May 1, 2023 at 7:16 pm

    2: The way the civil rights movement is talked about in the modern era sometimes minimizes the overall struggle of the movement. Instead, they present it as a swift, decisive, and successful campaign that easily gained the majority of Americans’ support. The idea that the civil rights movement provided a quick fix to the nation’s racial issues undercuts the continued struggle of Americans of all races who still have to deal with institutional and personal racial prejudice. Despite its focus on legal reform, the civil rights movement included all forms of racial injustice and violence, much of which was not eradicated by legislation. The civil rights movement was not always embraced by Americans. Many white individuals, and even some African Americans, who saw the campaign as useless fiercely opposed the heroes we remember today. Many believe the civil rights movement was a novel, unique phenomenon. Black people have struggled against segregation and discrimination since the 19th century, and before that, their fundamental freedom, despite the fact that the fight for racial equality has been a long and arduous one.

    4. To dispel one of the four CRM myths—that the CRM demonstrations were the first—the author mentions movements before 1955. Black Southerners protested on public transit every day fifteen years before Rosa Parks’ demonstration. Rosa’s actions were exactly the same as Pauli Murray’s in 1940. She was detained because she would not get up from her chair. Murray chose to remain in jail rather than pay the fine in order to make a point. There were so many more occasions before 1955, but they didn’t have the same impact that Rosa Parks did, primarily because they lacked institutional support.

    6. Only 36% of white Americans in a 1966 poll supported Dr. King, with the remaining 64% having a negative opinion. These actual figures support what is written in historical texts. The books serve as examples of the false claim that the majority of Americans agreed with the civil rights struggle. With 123 million out of 195 million individuals not caring about the rights of African Americans.

    7. Many conservatives damaged the reputations of Dr. King and Rosa Parks while they were still alive by labeling them as communists. When FBI director J. Edgar Hoover testified before Congress that there was “communistic influence infiltration in the CRM,” it was one way that these two were perceived as communists. According to other journalists, King disregarded FBI alerts concerning communists connected to the CRM. Additionally, King and Parks had been to Highlander Folk School, also known as the “Communist training school”. Since the CRM, Park, and King have only been regarded as heroes rather than communists. They had a significant impact on the CRM and withstood racial inequity through nonviolent protests, which is why.

    8. In order to win over those who supported the king and his beliefs, President Rhegan and McEnany both used the king’s comments to their advantage. King’s use of him to promote their goals made them seem more likable and understanding. King was not opposed to affirmative action, as Rhegan claimed when he mentioned it in relation to racial discrimination. King’s comments were taken out of context by Rhegan, who then gave them a new, misleading meaning. McEanny also chose to use a statement from the king when arguing for harsh law enforcement tactics against BLM protesters.(This is mind-blowing) If anything, King would applaud the BLM demonstration since it contains echoes of his own experience. MckEnney edited off the paragraph that went against her argument and only published the portion that supported her argument.
16. Zachary Salloum May 1, 2023 at 7:21 pm

    2. Describe the four misconceptions of the CRM from 1955-1968.

    The first misconception surrounding the Civil Rights Movement is that the protests from 1955-1968 were new and revolutionary. In reality, the CRM protests were modeled after previous civil rights protests. The second misconception is that the CRM and its leaders were supported by most Americans. This isn’t true, as many white Americans discouraged the protests. The CRM was similar to the BLM protests in the way it was received by most Americans. The third misconception is that the protests quickly exposed and eliminated racial prejudice. While the CRM was a critical step towards a better society, it didn’t completely eliminate racism and hatred. The last misconception is that the CRM brought about a racially equal society. Again, this just isn’t true. We know that even today, society isn’t equal.

    5. The classic narrative of the CRM suggests, according to the author, that white people just suddenly became aware of the evils of segregation in 1955, and that a small group of whites became allies in the struggle to end segregation. How believable is this scenario?

    This scenario is unbelievable. While the Civil Rights movement definitely drew attention to social injustice, white Americans had already known about the evils of segregation prior to the CRM, they just chose to ignore them. Rather, the CRM aimed to show politicians the evils of segregation, so that anti-segregation legislature would be passed. The narrative that the CRM opened the nation’s eyes to segregation and changed the minds of millions of white people isn’t accurate.

    8. How did President Reagan and Press Secretary McEnany misuse King to support their own agendas by knocking down a controversial topic of their time?

    Ronald Reagan used King to oppose an Affirmative Action bill, by arguing that King himself would have opposed Affirmative Action. He even quoted King’s “I have a dream” speech, saying that Affirmative Action would be an example of the very discrimination that King fought. In reality, King had explicitly stated that he was in support of a multi-billion dollar plan for the preferential treatment of black people. Press Secretary McEnany used a quote from Dr. King to justify the brutality of law enforcement against BLM protesters, saying that “We must learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools”. This misrepresents King’s image, as King was very anti police brutality, and he would have likely condemned law enforcement, not the BLM protesters.

    11. How did the CRM protest acts of police brutality in the past?

    In his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King condemned the way Bull Connor’s police forces treated protesters during the Birmingham, Alabama demonstration. He showed the inhumane treatment of black people by describing the physical abuse of young black children and elderly black folks in the city jail, as well as the way the police set dogs loose to maul black people during the protest. King also protested the police again later on, saying that the police need to “cease being occupation troops in the ghetto and start protecting residents.”

    13. What did the Pew Research Center find out about American attitudes in August 2020?

    The Pew Research Center found that 40% of respondents held doubt in their first amendment right to peacefully protest. Also, 60% of people who were interviewed believed that the statement “the rights and freedoms of all people are protected,” isn’t accurate in today’s society. The study also found significant differences along party lines, as 80% of republicans believed that the right to protest was safe, compared to only 43% of democrats. Also, only 53% of republicans believed that peaceful assembly is important. These results are disconcerting, as they show that the right to peaceful protest is currently under threat.
17. Parker May 1, 2023 at 7:41 pm

    2.) Firstly, the misconception that the classic era’s protest was the first of their kind. There were many previous bus protests preceding Rosa Parks, along with sit-ins preceding Greensboro, just those individual protests weren’t the first of their kind, but the whole movement for civil rights had been going on for decades longer than known today. Next is the misconception that most Americans supported the movement and its leaders. Most Americans actually refused to support the movement and accept the discrimination going on at the time, while its true protest spanked interest in some, this was a very small group of people, African Americans were mainly left to fend for themselves with minimal support from the rest of the nation. Next, on the myth that hatred and discrimination was quickly dispelled. It took years of protest just in the classic era to pass along the civil rights legislation, and this didn’t even stop discrimination which continues today just more discretely. Lastly, the myth that following the movement discrimination ended. Today there is the BLM movement for more discrimination today, along with many forms of racism in the system such as redlining, which promote some of the ideologies supposedly removed with civil rights.

    6.) I am very surprised with these results, I really had no idea how much of the nation was in opposition to MLK and even how many people were in opposition to the movement altogether. These numbers were far from what I would’ve guessed and really shows how much of a struggle the civil rights movement was.

    3.) Parks and her bus protest were tied through the law. Plessey had protested many years prior to Parks and had unintentionally gotten several transportation segregation laws passed. These laws leaked all over the nation with the publicity of the protest and eventually made their way into Rosa Parks’ home town where she was eventually arrested for interference with lawful business a law passed as an effect of Plessey’s protest.

    7.) This massive difference was a part of the ideologies of these different times. At the time MLK and Parks were protesting, the cold war was in full throttle and the US was terrified of communists, so, a tactic used by many to dismantle the image of US folks was to accuse them of associating with the communists. MLK and Parks were both prime targets of this as people wanted them to stop their protests to “conserve” America. Today they are regarded as heroes since segregation has been long outlawed and people of all cultures are much more intermingled today. We see this as the norm in the present day and most see it as a positive, so we regard the folks that fought for this as heroes.

    13.) They found that people are losing faith in the ability to peacefully protest and that the majority of folks believe that society today in the US does not provide equal rights to all. So overall people believe the US is still heavily racist
18. Tyler Clark May 1, 2023 at 8:00 pm

    2. 4 misconceptions of the civil rights movement is that: the civil rights movement started with the brown vs board of education decision in 1954, even though many had fought for integration of the army back during WW2. Another misconception is that the civil rights act was the end all be all of the civil rights movement, when truly, the civil rights movement continued to be fought even after the civil rights act, because there were still rights to be had. Another misconception about the civil rights movement is that it was just black people vs. very racist white people, when in reality, most white people thought what the civil rights activists did was overkill. A final misconception about the civil rights movement is that regular white people didn;t know what was happening to black people from very racist white people. People knew, but were ignorant until activists made that impossible.

    5. This narrative is not very believable because, while yes, not every white person was violently racist, those people could be found not very far from where most white people would live. So, even though the non- violently racist white people didn’t experience the evils of segregation themselves, they would certainly know about the,, considering they lived in that system too, and they lived in close proximity to those who propelled segregation.

    7. The smearing of Rosa Parks and Dr. Kings were communists while they were alive, but treatment as heroes now can easily be explained. While they were alive, the government and institutions couldn;t control what they would say, so they’d get the jump on them by making people think they were bad, to give them a bad image. Now, though, they can be molded into many different characters because they aren’t here to contest their image. Also, our society has still made steps against racism since their time, so their ideas aren’t taboo anymore.

    9. Randolph’s plan for the march on Washington for the integration of the army in WW2 pressured FDR to issue his order because it was essentially a strike of government workers, who were going to leave work during WW2, a time where quick work was needed, and march for their rights. Randolph chose great timing for his march because the people who were going to march were needed at the time. Also, Randolph was going to cause a massive disruption at home during the war, one during which we were fighting to Jewish rights in Europe. So, if FDR ignored the minorities at home, how could he fight for others rights?

    12. The author probably compared Jackie Robinson to Kapernick because it helps bring their arguments closer to the reader, and convey that the fight isn’t over. If athletes are still fighting for recognition and rights, then the fight for equality cannot be over. It’s also an example of two athletes surpassing their sport to make statements about their country.
19. Maggie R Holloway May 1, 2023 at 8:08 pm

    2.
    That the demonstrations from 1955 to 1968 were the first of their kind
    That most americans gave their support to the protests and their leaders
    That they quickly exposed and vanquished hatred
    They ended happily by bringing racial equality to america

    American protests have been treated like proud moments in our history– where we stand up for ourselves as a nation or as a certain people and fight for what we believe and what we want. Although, a lot of the negatives are left out of it, like the brutal beatings at peaceful protests, murders and stalking, etc. They’re all minimized to “we fought, some people died, we won”. There are some protests that weren’t treated like a proud moment– like under Trump’s administration, where the demonstration of the “terrorist” group Antifa had some violent aspects to their presentation– which is probably why most people haven’t heard of them. The protests that are anti-violent are more generally well known than those that were violent, unless they were on a genocide-level of violence.

    3. Plessy’s was the first noted, and Alabama enforced more laws that made this activity of boycotting or disturbing business illegal– and there were many after Plessy who did the same, and Rosa just happened to be one of them. The laws that Plessy caused to be put into action were still in effect, and so when she followed the model that many protesters did before her, she was also arrested and punished for standing up for herself.

    4. Pauli Murray refused to sit in the back of a bus in 1940 in Virginia, and was arrested. The author probably included these examples because they wanted to show that this stuff had been happening before Rosa Parks participated in her protest– they had been fighting for their rights for a at least a hundred years at this point,

    5. Not very believable. White people most definitely noticed the evils of segregation beforehand, but chose not to speak out or say anything about it. It was accepted, and didn’t affect them, so they never spoke out about it. Some white people obviously preferred segregation and racism, since they had the pretense that anyone who wasn’t white was inferior to them. Even today, we see this around almost everywhere– on social media, in school, etc. I can imagine if we still see it today, it was around during and a good bit before the CRM.
20. Christina Jones May 1, 2023 at 8:17 pm

    2. The first misconception- winning civil rights was easy, and that once Americans realized that what they were doing was wrong they immediately changed their ways and ratified laws that mended their flaws. This portrays the government as a system far better and way more clean and blameless than they were. The second was that most Americans supported the cause, and that all the white people supported MLK and the protesters and what they were doing. The third was that these protests were only retaliating against certain events, certain problems such as the segregation of buses or restaurants. The fourth was that things were solved back then and there are no longer any issues to solve.

    4. One example is the thing that happened with Homer Plessy in the Plessy v. Ferguson case. I believe that the author included this example to showcase the fact that the fight against racism and segregation didn’t just start and ‘end’ within one period, it was a long battle that didn’t just take place in the 60’s- one of the points of the entire article was to reiterate the fact that it was a long timeline and a long struggle, debunking the current idea that it was started and ended easily.

    5. This narrative is in fact incredibly difficult to believe, because it didn’t happen and that’s not how it went. The fight against racism started in 1619 when the slave ships were brought over, and it still has not ended today. Black people have reiterated the fact again and again since the slave days- they fought back and spoke out and staged rebellions since the slave days. There was absolutely no way that white people were not aware of the things black people had been continually saying since our country’s very origin.

    6. The poll numbers aren’t surprising at all because white people didn’t like MLK at the time. Of course they didn’t- they were conservative and didn’t like change, and they just didn’t like black people in general. So they didn’t want to see them gaining power. There were so many white people who would go on riots against the civil rights movement, call black people derogatory names, apply force, bomb their churches etc. It was so obvious that they had an ‘unfavorable opinion’ of him and the movement as a whole.

    10. Ella Baker explicitly states that the sit-ins and other protests are about something that’s much bigger than a hamburger, much bigger than a place at a restaurant or at the front of a bus. They wanted to rid America of segregation and racism as a whole. That’s the same thing that the Black Lives Matter movement now wants to achieve. Despite the fact that there are no longer laws that say that blacks aren’t allowed to attend schools with whites, there are still evidences of structural racism that might not be written in print, but are seen in other ways, and that is what the Black Lives Matter movement and the civil rights movement back then both wanted to fight against.
21. Jenna May 1, 2023 at 8:30 pm

    1. Oftentimes in history books American protests for the most part celebrate moments when Americans collectively rise up to fight against things that violate their liberties in acts of civil disobedience. For instance one of the most famous of their acts is the Boston tea party, Americans rebelling against the tea act imposed on them by the British parliament ending in throwing tons of tea into the harbor. And yet as detrimental to the environment as this was, it is praised by many. Many see these protests as an international human right.

    2. The myth of the “good” protest is based on the civil rights movement however there are many misconceptions about this time period. First, though it is widely believed, these demonstrations were in fact NOT the first of their kind. Civil rights movements have been going on long before, going as far back as the 1890s. Second, is the belief that most Americans gave their full support to the leaders of these protests and the protest themselves. Iconic leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. were disparaged and the target of slanderous and abusive statements. The third misconception is that most people are quickly exposed and get rid of hatred. This is simply not true as the topics of these movements are similar if not identical to those of past decades. Finally, number 4 is that all the protests ended in completely resolving the problem and bringing racial equality to America. Again this is clearly false as there are still BTM protests today.

    3. After Homer Plessy refused to move from his seat in 1892, he was arrested and charged under the Jim Crow Laws. In 1896 after the Plessy decision states across the South passed public transportation segregation laws. In the town of Montgomery in which Rosa Parks resited, Black citizens responded with petitions, boycotting, and picketing. This law happened to be the same law that would get Rosa Parks arrested in 1955.

    4. There are many examples of sit-in protests and resistance to segregated busing before the classic phase. Among these include: Pauli Murray, a young black woman, who studied nonviolent approaches, and refused to stay seated in the back of the bus. Ultimately, she chose to go to jail instead of paying a fine. Another example is 23-year-old Howard undergraduate Kenneth Clark. Clark led 30 male students in a sit-in at the house restaurant. I think the author’s purpose behind including these is to show that civil rights acts didn’t just start in 1955. African Americans have been fighting against segregation long before it became widely known to the public. I also believe that this was added to show that not all of the protests that led to the Civil rights movement were large-scale.

    6. How surprising are the poll numbers from 1966 about the country’s perception of the CRM to you? Explain.
    I found the poll numbers during 1966 to be very surprising seeing as way over half of the united states population did not favor Martin Luther King Jr. This is so shocking because nowadays we have a whole holiday to celebrate the man and all of his great accomplishments for the African American community and the Civil rights movement when back then when he was speaking out so many Americans didn’t see his significance. I was additionally surprised by the 30% of Black Americans who believed the demonstrations could hurt the advancement of the cause because I always assumed that people of color would be in full support of the effort.
22. sylvie May 1, 2023 at 8:37 pm

    1.as long as the protest is a “good protest” it is highlighted and celebrated. Nonviolent protests are seen as pivotal moments in our nation’s history, especially as it was growing. Violent ones may be highlighted as well except in a different light, which may not be the light they deserve depending on the situation. The article uses the example of the boston tea party, although it involves the weird and maybe discriminatory use of native cultural dressing it moved our country forward on the path to independence from britain.

    #2.the demonstrations/protests ranging from 1955-1968 were the first ever, that most americans gave their support to the protests and their leaders

    #3
    plessy did the same thing as rosa parks, she refused to get up on a trolley and straight after the southern states band together to make race discriminatory laws dealing with the segregation of public transportation. This is what rosa was fighting for, that is why she reran plessys protest almost 70 years later. Those laws enforced by plesseys demonstration were the reason that segregation in public transport was expected. This is why she was thrown in jail

    #4
    during wartime many black people hed sit ins, boycotts and protests whether large pr small they had an effect. Not everything started with Rosa Parks on that bus, there were girls, and there were busses before her. We just don’t know about them because they didn’t leave as big of a nation wide impact on the crm movement as a whole. One of those girls attempted to start the movement, in 1940., Petersburg Virginia, Pauli Murray was arrested because she refused to sit in the back of the bus. To make a statement ( im guessing) she decided to be jaimed instead of pay to get out

    #5
    Of course you could argue that the ideals that the corrupt institution of slavery had left behind were so deeply imbued in the white persons mind that they were entirely incapable of seeing things in which their eyes weren’t trained to see. Nonetheless segregation was not a political issue, it was morale. As people, whites saw with opinion first and then eyes, as a race they knew what they were doing every single one, they weren’t going to be suddenly disillusioned when they found out that black people wanted to be treated as just that, people. It is none sense that even after being “blind” for so long black people had to lend whites a cane to walk with.
23. Ashton May 1, 2023 at 8:44 pm

    2. A large misconception about the civil rights era is that the big protests were the only protests of their kind and that after these protests everything was fine. To begin, these sit ins and boycotts didn’t just randomly happen. Many had months of planning and preparation as the article describes when discussing how Rosa Parks didn’t just decide to not move. Adding onto that, these demonstrations that worked were in part because of the work of their predecessors before them and not all of them worked. Take the example of Claudette Colvin who also refused to give up her seat on the bus but because she wasn’t the image the movement was looking for, it wasn’t acted on. This goes to show the planning and risk that comes with things like this. Secondly, after the protests, everything was definitely not fine. Even after King’s dream speech, racism and hate continued on into today.

    7. I think the main reason they were smeared as communists in their time was because at the time their ideas were new and disruptive. Many white Americans would have been more than happy to continue on the way things had been but Parks, King, Randolph, etc. were disrupting their status flow and they didn’t like it. Therefore, the easiest thing to do was to pass them off as enemies of the state and traitors and therefore not worthy of having their opinions heard out.

    12. I think this is mainly because of the controversy around Colin Kaepernik today. Many people today take issue with the fact that he did what he did on live t.v. during a sports event and complain that sports isn’t supposed to be political and that they don’t pay him for his opinion, etc. etc. I think the author compares two to show that social activism in sports isn’t a new thing, meaning that it’s ont just some woke whatever, and that even some of the greatest players of all time have used their status to spread awareness for their causes.

    14. Some states, including Oklahoma, Florida, and Iowa, have passed laws making it significantly harder to impactfully protest. You’re not allowed to block sidewalks without facing 30 days jail time, and if you move your protest onto the road it’ll be a year. These laws are cheeky workarounds to keeping protests legal but suppressing them as much as possible. I believe they do this in the face of new mounting protest efforts taking place in the most recent years. They are trying to keep movements like BLM down and unable to petition for change well not directly attacking the movement.

    15. The author claims that people’s main gripes with the BLM protests are basically that they don’t seem like what the protests from the civil rights movement seemed like. The civil rights movement protests seemed like they were led by powerful figures like MLK rather than the “anarchists” of today yet in the 60’s and 70’s, MLK was branded as a communist. They see the BLM protests as disruptive and radical, well the CRM protests were just and righteous. The long and short of it is that people see what they wanted to see when it came to the CRM protests and now see a very different but probably more truthful image of protest today and are left to reason that today we’re doing something different and wrong compared to than.
24. Vincent May 1, 2023 at 8:49 pm

    1. How have American protests, whether individually or in groups, been treated in our history books?
    Many protests in American history books have been thrown to the side and deemed “unworthy” of kids learning about them because of their unruliness and failure. Many textbooks spread the ideology that the government always protects the citizens and protests are harmful to our “perfect” society. Tons of Americans believe that Rosa Parks was the first person to refuse to give up her seat when in reality she was not the first and many textbooks gloss over that monumental fact.
    2. Describe the four misconceptions of the CRM from 1955-1968.
    The Civil Rights Movement is thought to be a southern movement, only civil rights, non-violent, and led by men only. The Civil Rights Movement addressed economic and political issues as well as civil rights while using violence and also had many female leaders. The Civil Rights Movement was also not only limited to the South due to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. turned to the North calling for police to do their jobs to protect citizens.
    15. According to the author, why were some white people having trouble with BLM protests in the 2010s and 2020s?
    Some white people had trouble with Black Lives Matter because acknowledging white privileges would undermine their self worth and their rights. White people may also feel a sense of entitlement and might subconsciously enjoy their superiority. Other white people felt their security was threatened by the Black Lives Matter protests and activists. Tons of white people thought that the Black Lives Matter activists are trying to remove their rights.
    16. Why do you think some people were critical of the protests against police violence in the summer and fall of 2020?
    Some people were quite critical of the protests against police brutality because they thought the protests were too disruptive and promoted looting. Like minded people also thought that the protests against police brutality were based on a fake thing called systemic racism and were using this bit of fake news to promote destroying property. Other people were critical because they saw the protests as a threat to the way things were run and undermined the authority of law enforcement. The people who are critical of the Black Lives Matter protests show a failure to understand the extensive history of protests in America and show a massive failure in how someone might experience something different.
    6. How surprising are the poll numbers from 1966 about the country’s perception of the CRM to you? Explain.
    The poll numbers from 1966 didn’t surprise me too much because I knew that tons of white people in America were opposed to the Civil Rights Movement and would like nothing less to see them all in jail. The 30% of Black Americans saying that the protests were hurting the Civil Rights Movement shocked me because I was under the impression that all Black Americans were pro Civil Rights Movement and all the protests. Black Americans not liking the protests and sit-ins makes sense because everyone is entitled to their own opinion and just because someone looks a certain way doesn’t mean that they have to think along the lines of others who look like them.
25. Jack brunt May 1, 2023 at 9:03 pm

    2. Four misconceptions about the civil rights movement were 1. It was the first form of civil disobedience protesting for equal rights of its time. 2. That it was widely supported by the black community and mostly supported by the black community. 3. That these movements ended inequality based on race in america. 4. Finially that they were successful in ending racial hatred in america.
    4. A demonstration against segregated buses 15 years prior to Rosa Parks is an illustration of a protest that occurred before the “classic phase.” As an illustration, Pauli Murray refused to give up her seat on a bus in Virginia in 1940 after researching peaceful protest strategies. After being found guilty, she opted to go to jail rather than pay a fine. The conviction of Irene Morgan was another comparable incident that also occurred in Virginia. In 1944, Irene disobeyed the transportation segregation regulation by refusing to give up her seat on the bus. These less well-known cases, in my opinion, were included by the author to demonstrate that many black people had been boycotting for years prior to the actions of the well-known activists we are all familiar with.This can also demonstrate how many well-known boycotters from the classic era borrowed concepts and inspiration from less well-known boycotters from earlier.
    5. It’s somewhat likely that this scenario was the case. Where many white people were left away from black people in the north and south due to segregation. However many white people were probably aware of segregation and discrimination against black people. But as a result of it not affecting them they probably didn’t care and felt a lesser sense of responsibility. Once the larger movement came to more light there were probably more white people who cared about the issues and wanted to support but due to societal pressures were pressured into not participating in aiding the protests and movements. Aswell the future of the movement could have been sent to a halt becasue children were taught that this segregation was “the natural order of things” this would cause these children to grow up and support segregation so while there were racist people involved in inhibiting the progress of the movement, the larger amount of white people weren’t informed or involved enough to feel the need to make change.
    6. The results of the 1966 survey surprised me in certain ways. When compared to today, racism was much more prevalent then, and despite the abolition of slavery, most people still thought that African Americans were inferior to them in some respects. They also thought that African Americans were either demonstrating too much or didn’t have to because they were already treated equally under the law. For the majority of white people to simply modify their opinions, insufficient time has passed. The fact that 30% of African Americans thought civil rights marches were unhelpful surprised me, though. I believed that there was almost unanimous support from the black community and a growing support from the white community. It could have shocked me more that the white community wasn’t as supportive but when it came to the black support for mlk that was surprising becasue we were taught that he was beloved by almost all of the black community becasue he fought for their rights and wanted to better the community.
    7. Rosa parks and mlk could have been shown as communists becasue they advocated for equality and civil liberties when having all around equality was posted as communism. The main reason for this was one, an easy out for the removal of these advocates to get rid of them and attempt to replace segregation. And two becasue during this time there was a stress on America becoming communist because we were in the midst of the cold war with the communists and many were afraid of spies. But when times change we aren’t afraid of communism (at least not as much) and our biggest adversary has fallen greatly as a threat level. Aswell a social change, equality has become a larger norm in the 21st century and as leaders of this change they have become more celebrated as more voices are becoming more publicized.
26. Sabrina Schlotterer May 1, 2023 at 9:08 pm

    2. Q: Describe the four misconceptions of the CRM from 1955-1968.
    A: 1- Black people just complied with Jim Crow laws for decades 2- As soon as the federal government realized segregation was happening and was evil they passed the civil rights act 3- Passive protests from that ten-year period are the “good” protests and everything should model that. 4- Rosa Parks and the people at the Woolworth lunch counter sit-in were the first to protest in either of those ways. Also, the idea that white people had been unaware of their oppression of others up until this period.

    3. Q: “How did Alabama’s reaction to Homer Plessy’s protest on a segregated Louisiana train car directly lead to Rosa Parks’ arrest over 50 years later?”
    A: After the Plessy decision, cities and states all around the South followed suit with laws segregating public transportation. Because of this event and these subsequent laws, Rosa Parks was arrested for doing the same thing Plessy did all those years before under the laws created from his actions.

    7. Q: How can you explain the way that Parks and King were smeared as communists while they were alive but now are treated as iconic American heroes as great as any heroes America has produced?
    A: Mentioning communism at this time was like the dog whistle thing you always talk about in class, only not like a dog whistle at all and more like a regular whistle since it rings bells in everyone’s heads anytime it’s mentioned. It’s like how all those gay people working in the government were fired during the red scare. People just blamed it on communism even though we all know now that was not the case. Now they are treated as iconic American heroes because even though people before them did similar things, what they did is so well known and had such a prolonged effect on America that can’t just be pushed aside by people calling them and others names whenever their views and prejudices are challenged.

    8. Q: How did President Reagan and Press Secretary McEnany misuse King to support their own agendas by knocking down a controversial topic of their time?
    I think that they are literally just purposefully altering his message in ways that benefit them in a blatantly biased way. It’s kind of like how things are subtly influencing you everywhere you go nowadays and just no one notices. These people are completely ignoring his message in ways that he obviously would not have agreed with, so it looks like a prominent figure from a minority that obviously would not have taken their side actually would have taken their side. I think it’s disgusting and it just shows that they are awful people. It’s like they talked about in that one video we watched, about how people think Dr. King’s speech was just about one thing when really it was much deeper than who his children get to grow up playing with. These people are taking that to their advantage and snipping parts of what he said to make it seem like he would agree with those very people trying to oppress him, and it’s just awful because I bet many people actually stand behind what they are saying somehow.

    13. Q: What did the Pew Research Center find out about American attitudes in August 2020?
    A: They found that most people don’t think their right to peacefully protest is protected, and that’s definitely because it literally isn’t. Also, the fact that barely half of Republicans think it’s important to protect your right to protest completely confirms that, since the majority of protesters were Democrats. This is clear evidence that these are the people keeping others from feeling safe to do stuff to stick up for themselves, blatantly because a good portion of the other side doesn’t want them to stick up for themselves. (All just my opinion obviously)
27. kaylin arthur May 1, 2023 at 9:11 pm

    2. The four misconceptions are, the demonstrations between 1955 and 1968 were the first of their kind, most Americans gave support to the protests and leaders, that vanquished hatred was quickly exposed, and that they ended in bringing racial equality to all of America. The first one, the protests during this time period were the first of their kind is not true because many before them did very similar protests and demonstrations but don’t receive much recognition today. For example, Pauli Murray, an American Civil Rights Activist led a sit-in movement in 1943 and 1944. She would use a nonviolent approach by requesting service and after being denied, they would sit silently in the restaurant while more people came in and did the same things. They did this in the Little Palace Cafeteria who shut down not even an hour after this happened. Many people don’t know about these protests because they are not often talked about even though this and many other protests happened before more widely known protests, such as the Rosa Parks bus protest. The second misconception is that most Americans supported the protests and movements such as the MLK movement. This is untrue because many of these influential people were accused of being communist and protesters were often attacked. Many others simply disagreed with the protests and opposed their views. A third misconception is that violence is quickly exposed, this is untrue because many protesters were attacked, faced police brutality, and other inequalities that were often ignored. The last misconception is that they ended happily with equality. This movement is not fully done by this time period, and is still not finished today. Full equality still doesn’t exist nearly 70 years later, but it did give a start to this movement. African Americans were no longer under the control of Jim Crow Laws, and are slowly starting to win in their civil rights movement.

    6. The numbers from the poll in 1966 were honestly shocking to me. The amount of white people who did not think the Civil Rights Movements protests helped did not surprise me because racism was still very prominent in their society. What really was surprising to me was the 30% of African Americans who did not think the Civil Rights Protests helped. This surprised me because I thought more people would have agreed on the fact that the Civil Rights Movement helped to improve the lives of African Americans.

    7. Today, MLK and Rosa Parks are seen as iconic figures and are often looked up to, but back then it was the opposite. They were seen as communists by everyone and often hated. Many people such as Director J. Edgar Hoover said to congress that there was “communistic influence infiltration in the civil rights movement.” They are treated now as American heroes because as people started to move away from communist ideas, they realized the great amount of positive change they caused, and now many people look up to them.

    13. The Pew Research Center found many Americans condemn protests, and found that nearly 40% of people doubt that people can peacefully protest, which is 13% higher than it was 2 years ago. 60% of people also believe that the rights of everyone are protected does not accurately describe America today. Another thing the research center discovered was that many republicans agree that the right to protesting is safe and important to be done peacefully.

    15. Some white people had trouble with the BLM protests in the 2010s and 2020s because they believed it was acceptable to ask for admission into a society, but not to challenge the structure of the society if it continues to put minorities at a disadvantage. In the 2010s, protesters wanted to change the structure of societies, which really caused white people to have trouble with this. People of all ethnicities start to use terms such as systematic racism and police violence, but others use terms like cancel culture and blue lives matter.
28. Asher Leopold May 1, 2023 at 9:36 pm

    2. Describe the four misconceptions of the CRM from 1955-1968.
    The idea that Civil Rights Protests had to conform to the peaceful protests that everybody saw publicized is because of four different misconceptions. The first is that the that the many protests from 1955 to 1968 of the Civil Rights Movement were the first of their kind, the second is that most of the American people wholeheartedly supported the movement with thei righteous acts, the third is that they quickly exposed and vanquished hatred, extinguishing all racist people basically, and lastly, that they all ended happily and peacefully by bringing racial equality to America forever… thei all lived happily ever after apparently. The problem with these misconceptions is that they send a false narrative of victory. Most protesters faced lots of brutality and did not win alot of the time, but when they did, they were kind of still left with nothing or arrested. Also, the way most people were portrayed as so righteous like Dr King was so much about publicity, which was important for the cause, but it meant that other’s voices were kind of pushed aside. Finally, the misconception that they fixed everything is dangerous because as we can see in modern times, people ignore struggles saying its so much better than it used to be.

    9. How did A. Philip Randolph’s plan to have a March on Washington in 1941 motivate FDR to sign Executive Order 8802?
    A.Phillip Randolph realized in 1941 that the CRM was getting nowhere with national defense and devised a plan to march on Washington that would get the attention they needed. Randolph gathered and notified supporters as well as holding meetings around the country to get everyone he could involved. The plan included 100,000 people. In May, Randolph sent a document with him and the protesters’ demands to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. FDR responded that he could not do everything that Randolph wanted but passed Executive Order 8802, banning discrimination is defense systems and government and created a temporary comittee of fair labor/employment practices. Overall, Randolph got some of what he wanted, but is definitely was not a complete victory. After that, he called off the march.

    6. How surprising are the poll numbers from 1966 about the country’s perception of the CRM to you? Explain
    In the 1966 poll numbers, 36% of Americans said that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was helping the cause and 72% said he had an unfavorable opinion. As horrible these numbers are, this actually seems pretty on brand to me to be honest. I obviously was not alive then, but it seems like, until the movement was in crazy full spin, not a lot of people would have supported it. I feel like the numbers represent my conceptions. 36% is still alot of people, but not compared to the so many racist people out there, like George Wallace at the time, who just would not accept that Jim Crow had to go. So, I feel like, especially since these were secret votes, people really speak their mind. However, it was so crazy to me that 123 million people did not care about the movement. That just shook me because that is such a crazy amount that couldnt care less.

    13. What did the Pew Research Center find out about American attitudes in August 2020?
    In early August of 2020, the Pew Research Center found out that 40% of americans believed that the people could not count on them to peacefully protest. This was an alarming 13% more than 2018, just 2 years ago. Moreover, they found that 60% of people interviewed believed that “the statement, ‘the rights and freedoms of all people are protected,’ does not apply or accurately describe our current situation in the country. They found that 80 percent of Republicans thought that the right to protest was okay but only 43 percent of Democrats. They also found that 53% of Republicans said that it was “highly important that protestors be able to peacefully assemble. These are all astonishing to me, especially the ones divided by parties, because it seems like Republicans believe in people peacefully protesting more which is opposite to what i would assume since Democrats are portrayed as way more libreral/progressive.

    14. How did some states crack down on the right to protest in 2021? Why do you think that they did this?
    By July of 2021, Eight states had passed restrictive legislation on the right to protest and 21 others were trying to but waiting for approval. This is honestly so wild to me. In Arkansas, you can get up to 6 years in prison simply for blocking the sidewalk near a “critical” building or place. In Florida, the laws are similar, but if you block traffic for even a second, you can face upwards of 15 years in prison, thats the same number of years that people who get life sentences for things like murder have until they can get parole. In Oklahoma, if you block traffic and someone hits and kills or injures you, they cannot be held accountable whatsoever, I think that people did this because of the massive uprisings and peaceful protests and some not peaceful over the year before. Its so ridiculous to me though and I think this is just another way of people trying to silence voices, keep power, and keep people down out of fear.
29. Jacob G May 1, 2023 at 9:39 pm

    How have American protests, whether individually or in groups, been treated in our history books?
    Events like the boston tea party which have been seen throughout history, especially america’s, have been formative and these events change the course of american history. They have been treated with this mythical sense, like we see with American heroes such as George Washington, or Thomas Jefferson. This mythical status continues further and further into the Civil Rights Movement. Even further we see a very slight myth status with the anti-war movement during the vietnam war. These protests; however, not as prolific as that of the revolutionary era with protests like the boston Tea Party, or the Boston Massacre, or those of the civil rights movements, or even those of the gay rights movement like the Stonewall Riots, however they were still show with the similar mythical status. While some protests aren’t perceived mythically, many of them, especially the ones that are formative, are shown in a mythical, almost heroic light.
    Describe the four misconceptions of the CRM from 1955-1968.
    First, we see the misconception of how winning civil rights was easy. Instead of what we see today, which is an easy transition over about a decade, it was truly nearly a century of toil and strife. It’s portrayed like white Americans saw what was wrong right away and the people rallied behind a black force for civil rights, and that only the south and the government in many parts stood in their way. Secondly, the support of americans. America as a people, especially whites, were not supportive like they may have been made out to be by the media and many people. Third, is that in each protest it was about a targeted event or one specific situation; however, many if not all these protests were much more open and broad then how it’s portrayed and therefore seen. These events and protests were about ideas, not just boycotting buses, but boycotting segregation, or police brutality.
    How did Alabama’s reaction to Homer Plessy’s protest on a segregated Louisiana train car directly lead to Rosa Parks’ arrest over 50 years later?
    Homer Plessy’s protest in 1892 led to the supreme court case of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. This case enshrined the “separate but equal” law into the constitution. And allowed for everyone and everything to use said laws. For the next 59 years everything would use these separate but equal laws to keep african americans down and to continue to oppress them. However, Rosa Parks, like many others, stood up to this and boycotted the buses. While many others would do similar, if not the exact same, things, she is the most prolific of her crowd. These buses had said “separate but equal” laws and when she stood up against them she was therefore violating the law and was subsequently arrested. That shows a direct correlation from the Plessy protest, to the court case, to the law, to the arrest of Rosa Parks.

    Provide at least one example of resistance to segregated busing and sit-ins that had happened BEFORE the first ones honored in the classic phase. Why has the author included these examples?
    To show how it wasn’t just this one decade, and how this fight spanned decades, even centuries, the author included the case of Plessy v. Fergeson. One of the four points stated during the opening for the article was that this fight was a long, drawn out battle against the system and the people which would not end even during the current day. The case of Plessy v. Ferguson, in which the supreme court held up the “separate but equal” idea within the constitution and ruled such laws to be completely legal and constitutional. This case happened in 1896, 4 years after the event in 1892, showing specifically how this battle was ongoing 64 years before the ‘classical’ period of the civil rights movement.
    The classic narrative of the CRM suggests, according to the author, that white people just suddenly became aware of the evils of segregation in 1955, and that a small group of whites became allies in the struggle to end segregation. How believable is this scenario?
    I do not believe this scenario. This is because there was wrong-doings based on race, and incredible injustices since the first instance of slavery on the continent. Since then we had seen racial uprisings to try and bid for equal rights. We never saw many whites stand up for these african-americans except for in many small cases or in the large, and standout, case of the abolitionist movement. Otherwise, we never saw these white people congregate behind anyone in the CRM. Especially when we see how many cops and servicemen were fervently against the movement. JFK, and therefore Lyndon B. Johnson became one of the few whites behind the movement.
30. kaii mitchell May 1, 2023 at 10:05 pm

    2. A massive misconception of the civil rights movements was that it was the first of the type, even though there had been many others before. Another misconception was that the majority of Americans backed the protests and their organizers. We know this was completely false, seeing as most Americans thought that the cold war was the biggest thing happening in America at the time, and only 5% of Americans felt the civil rights movement was more important. The third misconception was that the protests quickly exposed and eliminated hatred at the time. This is completely false, due to the fact that these rights have been challenged for over a hundred years, and would continue to fight for a hundred more into the future. The final was that things were instantly solved then, and no issues remained to solve.

    3. How did Alabama’s reaction to Homer Plessy’s protest on a segregated Louisiana train car directly lead to Rosa Parks’ arrest over 50 years later?
    Alabama’s reaction to Homer Plessy’s protest, and refusal to get up from a segregated Louisiana train car, gave Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks an example, and set the stage of how the situation should be handled and played out. He was charged and jailed for violating Jim Crow laws. Following the Plessy ruling, segregation, and Jim Crow laws in public transportation were enacted in many Southern states. Claudette Colvin, Rosa Parks, and many many after Plessy, would be detained as a result of these laws, and their defiance to them.

    4.One example of resistance to segregated busing and sit-ins that had happened before the first ones honored in the classic phase could be the one organized by Pauli Murray and Bayard Rustin. Pauli Murray was an American civil rights activist, lawyer, and priest. In 1940, Murray was denied admission to the University of North Carolina law school because of her race, despite having a stellar academic record, and better scores than some of the white men that did get accepted. In 1941, Murray and civil rights activist Bayard Rustin organized a sit-in at a Washington, D.C., cafeteria that was segregated by race. The sit-in was one of the earliest and most successful of its kind, and it helped to inspire a wave of protests against segregation in public spaces throughout America. Murray continued to be a powerful voice for civil rights throughout her life, and in 1965, she became the first African American to earn a doctorate of law from Yale University, and one of the first African American women to be ordained as an Episcopal priest.

    11. These organizations demanded a civilian review board to supervise the police force in an effort to bring attention to police brutality and misbehavior. Additionally, they demanded that the DPD employ more African Americans in order to more accurately reflect the city’s racial makeup, so there would be less hate crimes and that police officers receive additional and better training. Police who use excessive force may rob someone of their right to life. If police force is unneeded or excessive, it could also be considered torture or another form of abuse. With the use of the television, and media, while in Birmingham, also nicknamed “bombingham” , Alabama, Dr. King used this tactic to his advantage. The Birmingham Children’s Crusade involved thousands of young people, some as young as six years old, who marched in the streets of Birmingham to protest segregation and racial injustice. Many of these children were arrested, and some were attacked by police dogs and hit with high-pressure water hoses. This protests drew national attention and put pressure on the city’s leaders to negotiate with civil rights activists, after seeing so many young children being beaten and attacked by the police.
31. Claire P May 1, 2023 at 10:13 pm

    1. Textbooks celebrate acts of civil disobedience, such as the Boston Tea Party, because they seem to alter the course of history. These acts of protest are viewed as civil rights and human rights. The right to protest is the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights, and textbooks think it is an essential part of history.

    2. It is commonly misunderstood that the CRM wasn’t the first protest of their time. The 1955 to 1968 movement followed the civil rights movement from 1890 to 1950. This shows that the movement took decades, and African Americans have always been fighting for equality, not just during the mid-twentieth century. People are also confused about the fact that most Americans gave their support to the protests and their leaders when in reality they didn’t. Even though Rosa Parks and MLK are idolized today, they were villains during the CRM. People also thought that hatred was quickly exposed and gotten rid of, when in reality many Americans were oblivious to the segregation and when it was brought to their attention, they didn’t do much to abolish it. Lastly, it is believed that it ended happily by bringing racial equality to America. This is incorrect because even though this movement made some changes, much still needs to be done.

    4. Before Rosa Parks’ protest, black southerners were constantly protesting segregation on public transportation. Specifically, Pauli Murray, a young black woman in Virginia, used nonviolent techniques that she had been learning about when she remained seated in the back of a bus in 1940. She was arrested for disorderly conduct and choose to go to jail instead of paying the fine. The author included other examples to show that there wasn’t just one protest against segregation on public transportation but many protests across the country that have gone unnoticed. All of these smaller protests band together to bring attention to this large issue.

    5. The narrative that white people only became aware of the segregation issue in 1955 is ridiculous. White people were always aware of this issue because it was present in their everyday lives, such as separated facilities or stores or drinking fountains. They could no longer ignore segregation when African Americans repeatedly brought it up and protested for their rights. White people made themselves feel better by saying they were oblivious to the issue and only started allying with the issue when they knew about it.

    13. Pew Research Center conducted a poll in the summer of 2020. They encountered alarming results. 40% of the people who responded agreed with the statement, they “doubted that people could count on their right to peacefully protest.” This percentage has increased by 13% in the last two years. In addition to that, 60% of respondents agreed that “the statement, “‘the rights and freedoms of all people are protected’ did not accurately describe the situation in the country today.” Overall, the center learned that Americans were doubting their rights during 2020.
32. Kiera May 1, 2023 at 10:18 pm

    1. The textbooks and national lore celebrate moments in our history when individual and collective acts of civil disobedience, for example, the Boston Tea Party seemed to change the course of our history. Many people see protests as a part of civic life and an international human right.
    2. The four misconceptions of the CRM are that the demonstrations from 1855-1968 were the first of their kind, that most Americans supported the protests and their leaders, that they quickly exposed and vanquished hatred, and that they ended happily by bringing racial equality to America. The first misconception mentioned above doesn’t take into account the civil rights moment from the 1890s to the 1950s that ultimately led to the classical phase of the movement. This helps show that winning civil rights was much more complicated than most Americans believe and that African Americans had always fought for equality. The second misconception mentioned above doesn’t regard the leaders like, MLK Jr. who has been canonized in the past 35 years. Third, there have always been other issues than just slavery, such as police brutality, economic equity, voting rights, and cultural symbols that have always been a part of the civil rights agenda. And finally, issues still remain on the national agenda.
    3. As both Plessy and Parks, began their commutes they both anticipated what would happen. They expected the driver would tell them to move, they knew they would refuse, and they braced themselves for what would follow. With organization backing, they would fight the inevitable ejection, publish it, and rally community protesters to support them. By the time Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus in 1955, countless others had already followed Plessy’s 1892 refusal. Many know Rosa Parks as the first person who challenged segregation in transportation when she refused to move to the back of the bus.
    4. In the 15 years before Parks’s action, Black southerners had launched almost daily protests agaisnt segragation on crowded buses and trains as the country mobilized on the home front. In Virginia, Pauli Murray, a young Black woman, had been studying nonviolent techniques when she refused to stay seated in the back of a bus in 1940 in Petersburg, Virginia. After her arrest and conviction for disorderly conduct, she chose to go to jail rather than pay a fine. I think the author chose to include these examples to clear one of the misconceptions at the beginning of the chapter that this was the first of its kind because it wasn’t. The author is showing that Black people were always fighting for their rights and protesting. 7. Conservative and mainstream politicians smeared King as a communist throughout his career. Federal Bureau of Investigation Director J. Edgar Hoover testified to Congress that there was a communist influence infiltration in the civil rights movement. The people during the CRM had ideals of white supremacy and would discriminate against people that had a different race than white.
33. Teddy Abbot May 1, 2023 at 10:30 pm

    American protests have been looked at and covered in many ways. Protests, such as the American Revolution and the Civil Rights Movement, have been celebrated as pivotal moments in American history, leading to significant changes and progress towards greater equality and justice. These protests are typically shown in a positive light, with the leaders and participants often depicted as heroes and trailblazers.On the other hand, other protests, such as those against the Vietnam War or the Black Lives Matter movement, have been viewed more controversially. Some history books may portray these protests as disruptive and even unpatriotic, while others may view them as important expressions of dissent and necessary steps towards social change.
    In an act of rebellion against new segregation laws, Homer Plessy intentionally sat in the whites only section of a train car. Despite Plessy’s arrest for violating Louisiana’s segregation laws, this bold move was part of a greater legal challenge to the “separate but equal” doctrine which upheld public facility segregation as long as they were deemed comparable. The resulting Supreme Court case, Plessy v. Ferguson, ultimately decided that segregation was constitutional in such facilities. Although Plessy was unsuccessful in his act he ignited a spark that inspired people to stand up to what is wrong this same spark could be related to what gave Rosa parks the courage to tsand uip to segregation in the 1900s.
    During the Cold War, communism was viewed with great suspicion by many Americans and the U.S. government alike. Those who challenged the status quo and sought radical social and political change, such as civil rights activists, were often labeled as communist sympathizers or even agents by anti-communist crusaders. As a result, Rose , King, and many other civil rights actvists faced accusations that their activism was a threat to American values and unpatriotic in nature.
    Reagan and McEnany’s attempts to claim King’s legacy as their own is problematic. They focus on his message of nonviolence and unity while ignoring the radical nature of his activism. By using King’s name to justify controversial policies, they weaken his ideals and undermine justice and equality. They tarnish Kings legacy when they do this making it problematic and wrong.
    2
    The first idea is that the Civil Rights Movement was a peaceful and nonviolent struggle. While many of the protests and demonstrations organized by civil rights activists were nonviolent, the movement was not entirely peaceful. The second idea is that the Civil Rights Movement was a strictly black struggle. While the Civil Rights Movement was largely led by African Americans, it was multiracial and included other races and ethnicities. The third idea is that the Civil Rights Movement was a uniform and cohesive movement. The Civil Rights Movement was not a powerful movement, but a diverse and complex coalition of groups and individuals with different ideologies, strategies, and priorities. The last idea is that the Civil Rights Movement ended with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. While these acts of legislation marked significant stands for the Civil Rights Movement they did not end racial inequality or discrimination in America.
34. Christian Pearson May 1, 2023 at 10:57 pm

    Questions 2-6

    Between 1955 and 1968, people held four major misunderstandings about Civil Rights Movement (CRM). Firstly, some individuals wrongly believed that simply changing laws would end segregation, without addressing underlying social and economic issues. Secondly, there was a narrow focus on the well-off black community, ignoring the plight of the working-class and impoverished. Thirdly, some people thought peaceful protests were enough to bring about change, underestimating the potential for more aggressive tactics. Finally, there was a mistaken assumption that integrating races would automatically guarantee equality, without tackling systemic issues of discrimination and inequality. These misconceptions highlight the ongoing and complex struggles in achieving genuine racial justice.

    In 1896, Alabama played a significant role in establishing the “separate but equal” legal doctrine in response to Homer Plessy’s protest on a segregated train in Louisiana. This decision entrenched racial segregation and discrimination for over 50 years. However, Rosa Parks’ arrest in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955, after refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus, ignited the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which became a pivotal moment for the civil rights movement. Eventually, segregation laws were overturned, and equal rights were granted. Therefore, Alabama’s response to Plessy’s protest ultimately contributed to the fight for equality and the end of segregation.

    The author gave examples of sit-ins and opposition to segregated busing that took place before the classic phase, such as the 1946 demonstrations in Montgomery, Alabama against segregated seating on a bus. These illustrations demonstrate that the Civil Rights Movement was not an unexpected or singular occurrence, but rather was founded on a long tradition of activism and resistance. The author emphasizes the ongoing struggles of African Americans to combat discrimination and segregation, even before the movement attracted widespread attention, by using these examples. The bravery and tenacity of those who were prepared to jeopardize their safety and livelihoods in the name of justice are also shown by these early acts of resistance.

    The traditional narrative of the Civil Rights Movement (CRM) that suggests white people abruptly became aware of segregation’s evils in 1955, and only a small number of them joined the fight against segregation, is not entirely accurate. The movement’s history is more complicated than that, and while events like the Montgomery Bus Boycott did grab national attention, the fight for civil rights had been ongoing for decades. Additionally, there were many white activists and supporters in the movement, and the idea that they were a small group is misleading. White allies played crucial roles in the CRM, contributing significantly to the cause of racial justice.

    Given the historical context of the civil rights movement, I’m not surprised by the poll numbers from 1966 about the country’s perception of the CRM. The movement was a source of controversy and polarization, with Americans having differing views about it. Sadly, the fact that a significant portion of the population had an unfavorable view of the CRM in 1966 speaks volumes about the deeply ingrained racism and systemic inequality that existed in the United States at the time. Nevertheless, it’s disheartening to think about how slowly progress was made in the fight for civil rights, and it serves as a reminder of the work that still needs to be done today to achieve true equality for all.
35. Sammie Koch May 1, 2023 at 11:18 pm

    1. How have American protests, whether individually or in groups, been treated in our history books?
    Our history books note protests as peaceful and say that it is the reason as to why they were effective. Protests like those from the Civil Rights Movement especially are deemed as “good protests”. History books have shortened the long standing Civil Rights Movement down to a decade of time, giving readers the impression that equality among races was easy and not that it took hundreds and hundreds of years.

    2. Describe the four misconceptions of the CRM from 1955-1968.
    The four misconceptions of the Civil Rights Movement atone to the beliefs that it was an easy fight and that equality among races was solved solely through these 13 years alone, none before and none after. Another widely thought misconception was that all Americans were on board with the movement which was extremely far from the truth. Many Americans still pushed back towards the Jim Crow era and were wildly against the ideas of integration with African Americans and other minorities in school and in the workplace and many others.

    15. According to the author, why were some white people having trouble with BLM protests in the 2010s and 2020s?
    Some White people were having trouble with the Black Lives Matter protests in the 2010s and the 2020s because After the Civil Rights Movement, White Americans were under the impression that all minorities were officially deemed equal to one another and that the protesting should be no more because they already were equal to whites. Many Americans came to believe that all goals of racial equality were met with the Civil Rights Movement and that no more corrections needed to be made in our nation.

    16. Why do you think some people were critical of the protests against police violence in the summer and fall of 2020?
    Some Americans were critical over the 2020 violence surrounding the Black Lives Matter Movement because they had a lack of faith in our country. Tons of Americancs thought peaceful protests were impossible in our nation anymore .Many people did not believe that their rights as Americans citizens were being accounted for and allowed. And some states actually made laws that basically prohibited protests wether peaceful or not which in fact violates the first amendment of the constitution.

    11. How did the CRM protest acts of police brutality in the past?
    The Civil Rights Movement Protested police brutality in the past one way by when MLK jr. was sent to jail during a peaceful protest and then sent the African American children to step up in the movement and boycott their “colored school”. They were tracked down by the police and firefighters and hosed down leaving several injured and several sent to jail.
36. Manny Scobie May 1, 2023 at 11:21 pm

    Describe the four misconceptions of the CRM from 1955-1968.

    The 4 misconceptions about the Civil Rights movement (1955-1968), were that the protests were the first of their kind, That they quickly eradicated racial profiling/hate, that many Americans were giving support to the leaders and protesters, and finally that CRM ended racial inequality for American citizens.

    4. In 1940 a young black woman named Pauli Murray, refused to get up off a “whites-only section” of a bus in Petersburg, Virginia. She was studying nonviolent techniques to further aid the Civil Rights movement. Because she refused to get up she was sent to jail because of disorderly conduct. Glenda Gilmore has included these examples to show how badly we needed the Civil Rights movement to be successful. Because incidents like this kept happening to people of color, because of their skin color.

    How can you explain the way that Parks and King were smeared as communists while they were alive but now are treated as iconic American heroes as great as any heroes America has produced?

    MLK and Rosa Parks were portrayed as communists back then, and now they are massive historical figures known for how much they did for the Civil Rights Movement. However, back when they were living many southern people viewed them as communists, when all they wanted was racial equality for everyone. Unfortunately, In king’s speeches where he would speak for global equality and freedoms, many people(including members of the FBI) thought Martin Luther King Jr. was a “communist threat”. Even people of color that went to segregated schools were called communists.

    9. How did A. Philip Randolph’s plan to have a March on Washington in 1941 motivate FDR to sign Executive Order 8802?

    A. Philip Randolph was a labor leader, and creator of the group: Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters(BSCP). On January 25th, 1925 he launched the March On Washington Movement (MOWM). He and the BSCP marched to Washington, demanding to end segregation. Because of the Civil Rights Movement and the mass outrage from African Americans in America, FDR finally signed executive order 8802 stating: “no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries or Government because of race, creed, color, or national origin.”
    In June of 1941 FDR signed this and it was supposed to eradicate racial discrimination in the workplace setting, however, Racism and Jim crow continued to happen until the late 1960’s.
37. Sofia Marx May 1, 2023 at 11:23 pm

    1. How have American protests, whether individually or in groups, been treated in our history books?

    The way our history books treat protests is entirely dependent on the race of the people protesting and the time of the portrayal. Different protests are viewed differently. A great example is how the Boston Tea Party compares to John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry. The Boston Tea Party is seen as some necessary and completely justifiable act by textbooks. They completely downplay and disregard the racism that was involved in the Boston Tea Party, and almost always portray it in a positive light. The colonists who were involved dressed up as indigenous people in a culturally appropriative way in an attempt to frame them, which beyond making no sense was extremely racist. When John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry is referenced, it is seen as something that was extremely radical and unnecessary. After all, textbooks almost always fail to mention the fact that black people didn’t see an end to antebellum slavery, or an end to Jim Crow segregation through a few years of explicit peace. Textbooks illustrate John Brown’s actions to be more extreme than the system of Antebellum slavery which I find to be ridiculous. In the same way, these portrayals change over time. For example, during the civil rights movement, obviously there wasn’t a general consensus amongst “good” white people that black people should have equal rights, but as time has gone on, textbooks adapt to continue portraying white people as the good guys and the heroes, even when they were the ones who created and enforced those systems in the first place.

    2. Describe the four misconceptions of the CRM from 1955-1968.

    The demonstrations from 1955-1968 were the first of their kind
    American textbooks have a tendency to skip over large portions of black history in America and condense them down into a significantly shorter period of time. The civil rights movement lasted for decades. There seems to be a common consensus that the civil rights movement consisted of a lot of big changes in a small amount of time leading to the fixing of racism, but this is not the case at all. Black Americans had always fought for their rights, and the civil rights movement wasn’t that simple. The fight was much heftier, and the opposition is significantly larger than typically mentioned. This brings me into the second point.

    That most Americans gave their support to the protests and their leaders

    Americans tend to have this perfectionist view of themselves, so as our ideas of right and wrong evolve, the American self view evolves as well. During the actual civil rights movement, black protesters were demonized. After all, they picked Rosa Parks for one of the biggest faces of the civil rights movement despite the fact that she wasn’t the first to refuse to get up from her seat. But because she was older, not pregnant out of wedlock, and lighter skinned, she was deemed a better candidate to sway the white population. They had to be psychologically swayed with the utilization of their racial bias just to be against racism which is awfully ironic.

    That hatred was quickly exposed and disposed of by Americans
    There are many obvious reasons this isn’t true. If this was the case, then we wouldn’t have had centuries of slavery, and the civil rights movement would have started and ended well before 1900. Americans created that very hatred, and the idea that they were quick to dispose of it is an absurd notion. The only reason that idea even exists is so Americans can keep glorifying themselves.

    That the protests ended happily by bringing racial equality to America
    This is pretty self explanatory if you watched the news at all during 2020. Obviously it expands far beyond that, but that’s when there was a lot of news coverage. Racial equality still hasn’t been achieved in America, and the idea that it has is a dangerous one. It leads to the idea that racism doesn’t exist which by extension leads to the continuation of dehumanization of black people whether that be through the police system or healthcare system, and that oftentimes results in death.

    7. How can you explain the way that Parks and King were smeared as communists while they were alive but now are treated as iconic American heroes as great as any heroes America has produced?

    The answer to this question follows the same narrative as I previously referenced. Essentially, America has a god complex, and Americans hold a perfectionist view, but instead of putting in the work to do better and acknowledge their mistakes, they rewrite history. By rewriting history, they are able to portray themselves as the good guys time and time again, even if they started and escalated the problems. King and Parks were smeared as communists while they were alive because the actual history of this country involves a majority of white people being opposed to King and Parks. At the same time, America was facing major anti-communism sentiment, so they used that narrative to bring down King and Parks. As time moved on, and it was segregation that grew more socially unacceptable, Americans feared being seen as the villains, so they rewrote the story to change the true values of MLK while also narrating themselves as the good guys.

    15. According to the author, why were some white people having trouble with BLM protests in the 2010s and 2020s?

    They were having trouble with BLM protests because in their eyes racism had ended. This is in large part due to the concept of “good” protests, and when white people saw the creation of certain anti-discriminatory laws, they assumed that racism was no longer prevalent. This is obviously not true, but obviously when you hold this view as a result of the national American narrative, watching people protest over a very system that you think no longer exists seems absurd. This is why it’s extremely important to dispel any and all myths regarding the idea that racism is no longer an issue in America.

    16. Why do you think some people were critical of the protests against police violence in the summer and fall of 2020?
    I think people were critical of these protests for the same reasons I mentioned in my previous answer. There’s a few ways I could go about answering this question. The people who were critical of these protests had a few different arguments. 1. Racism doesn’t exist in America at this point in time. 2. Police officers kill more white people than black people. 3. Black people just commit crimes at a higher rate, and it’s their own fault for resisting arrest. 4. The BLM movement consists of violent riots, and the only way to put aside our differences is by using peace. There’s many other arguments, but I’ll just go through each of the ones I mentioned and explained why they don’t quite make sense.
    Racism very much does exist in America. There’s so many statistics we can see this through. Regarding healthcare for example, black people are chronically undertreated for pain management because of dehumanizing biases that we are genetically different to white people, and have a higher pain tolerance. Another example in the healthcare system is that black Americans are 3x more likely to die during childbirth than white Americans. There’s a large of anecdotal evidence I could use as well, but I won’t because it can easily be downplayed, and that contributes to a further unnecessary argument. The result would be the claim that racism runs so much deeper than a white person saying racist things to a black person.
    I’m not even going to get into the actual statistics here, because they’ve been referenced time and time again, and still, people use this as an argument. The most disagreeable part of this argument is the acceptance of police brutality rates being that high to begin with. If “the media only portrays the black people who are killed by police,” then how many people are cops killing a year? And that’s okay for the people who argue that? Plus, one thing that may be more valuable to these individuals than quantitative data is that the American policing system literally originated from the slave patrol. The roots of the institution are racist, and the only way to change those roots is to tear down the current system and rebuild it.
    Just no. Police officers are just that, police. They do not get to also play the role of the judge, jury, and executioner. That is well beyond the job description, yet many cops disregard this. Additionally, in many cases of police brutality where a black person is murdered by cops, there was no resistance to arrest. Even if a person resists arrest, that is not a crime that warrants the death penalty. Plus, most of the instances that would even involve resisting arrest aren’t a public safety threat, so it’s not worth shooting the suspect to death. There’s so much more to argue with this one, but I’ll leave it here.
    The last part of that statement isn’t even true. White people cannot keep inciting violence and then demonize us for “not being peaceful”. For centuries, black people have been told to sit down and accept the racism expressed by white people, rather than to fight it. Additionally, the BLM movement definitely doesn’t consist of violent looters and rioters, especially considering that the movement’s founding lies well before 2020.
38. Juno Saulson May 1, 2023 at 11:33 pm

    2. Describe the four misconceptions of the CRM from 1955-1968.

    First off, the majority of Americans believed that it was composed of inherently non-violent means of protesting (sit-ins, boycotts, peaceful protests, etc), when in reality it was a mix of the aforementioned non-violent means and violent ones. The Black Panthers are a prime example of this; they believed that peaceful protesting wasn’t going to cause change within the United States, therefore, they stayed hypervigilant and armed themselves accordingly. Secondly, issues like racism, inequality, and police brutality, just dissipated overnight. That the Civil Rights Act of 1964 just made everyone equal and happy and fine (even though the US remained segregated for several years after). Thirdly, the majority of Americans were loyal to the cause of racial equality, as well as their proponents, usually noting either Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King Jr as their main leaders; completely ignoring Ruby Bridges, Angela Davis, Malcolm X, etc. Those that are ignored are usually guilty of being “bad protesters”, or just failing to fall within the standards that white Americans had for their black peers. And Lastly, that the Civil Rights Movement of 1955-1968 was the first example of black folks protesting over the abject inequalities and violence they faced within the United States.

    3. How did Alabama’s reaction to Homer Plessy’s protest on a segregated Louisiana train car directly lead to Rosa Parks’ arrest over 50 years later?

    I love the butterfly effect! As the excerpt states, both “became famous for a day”, despite the respective dates being around 63 years apart from each other. Racial tensions in the south weren’t a thing of the past; many people, including those who employed African Americans on sharecropping plots, still held the key beliefs that their ancestors were before and after succeeding from the country. Even after Plessy’s arrest and infamous trial, the majority of Alabama natives were still quite deep in the Jim Crow Era’s abjectly racist beliefs. This same phenomena plays out in the exact same manner with Rosa Park’s refusal to move and her subsequent arrest. But, she wasn’t the only one to do this; Claudette Colvin, a 15 year old girl, practiced the exact protesting technique, down to a T. But the point still remains, both Colvin and Parks practiced the same method of protest that Homer Plessy did 63 years prior. This sort of peaceful demonstration was commonplace in the Civil Rights Era of the 1950s and 1960s, but it all began with Plessy, it all began with public outcry from angry white people, it all began with black folks recognizing the true nature of segregation. There is no such thing as “equal separation”, only segregation that seeks to benefit whiteness as a concept.

    7. How can you explain the way that Parks and King were smeared as communists while they were alive but now are treated as iconic American heroes as great as any heroes America has produced?

    Not to get morbid (and somewhat off topic) but what i’ve noticed about some people, is that they don’t care about suicidal kids, they care about kids who have committed suicide. When they were alive, white people, specifically the “white moderate” were attempting to either ignore or vocalize their screwed up beliefs regarding the Civil Rights Era. By simply ignoring the inherently racist and flawed past of our country, people tend to frame those as heroes who weren’t seen as such at the time (and vice versa!). Despite historical evidence, what we learn in school is that MLK and Rosa Parks ended racism, point blank, no nuance required. But it’s this lack of true nuance and understanding that our education system fails us as American citizens. Yes, they are incredibly important figures to learn about, especially in the context of American history and culture, but they’re only taught across the board due to their own personal beliefs and identities. The man who influenced MLK’s own success, Bayard Rustin, is continually left out of history books due to his status as an openly gay man. He was shunned from both of his communities in a time of need. Or take Angela Davis, Malcom X, any of the prominent Black Panthers, they aren’t taught because they argued for armed resistance rather than peaceful means of protesting (especially towards a government that wouldn’t listen to any demands of equality.)

    13. What did the Pew Research Center find out about American attitudes in August 2020?

    The Pew Research Center conducted a survey in late July as well as early August of 2020, what they found to be true was incredibly concerning; 40% of everyone who answered said they “didn’t feel safe exercising their constitutional right to protest ”. 6/10 people interviewed stated that they “didn’t feel the rights and freedoms of everyone in America was protected” or, “felt that ‘the rights and freedoms of everyone in the country are protected’ was not an accurate in this day and age”.

    14. How did some states crack down on the right to protest in 2021? Why do you think that they did this?

    Approximately eight states within the United States passed laws in 2021 that restricted the constitutional rights of the people that reside in them, the right to safely protest the government if they disagree with the actions they commit. They did this because it’s a means of control; despite being incredibly unconstitutional, without people protesting against government wrongdoings, they won’t need to acknowledge that they exist. Why do you think the English Colonial Government was incredibly authoritative with their style of politics? It’s because that if they weren’t, the settlers would run the colonies, doing whatever they pleased, and turn a British colonial state used for natural resources and economic opportunities into a settler run republic, completely losing everything they had fought hard for.
39. Ally OBrien May 1, 2023 at 11:34 pm

    #2 The first misconception of the CRM was that the demonstrations of theirs were the first of their kind. This is obviously untrue because there was resistance to the Jim Crow laws immediately after they were put into place. The second misconception is that when these “first” protests happened, most Americans supported the protests and the leaders of them. This is false because when the real first protest happened there was a great deal of controversy and the reason it took so long to get rid of segregation was because not all Americans agreed. The third misconception is that they quickly exposed and vanquished hatred. The hatred that sat within racist feelings towards African Americans was not quickly vanquished because it remained for over a century without change. The final misconception is that they ended happily by bringing racial equality to America. The disappointing truth is that there is still not complete racial equality in America with police brutality and racism in jobs and schools, the protests did not end happily as many people wound up injured from them.

    #6 The voting results in 1966 showed that only 36 percent of white people thought that Martin Luther King Jr. was helping the cause and a shocking 72 percent of white people had an unfavorable opinion of him. This was shocking to me because at this point in 1966, after all these years, people still could dislike Martin Luther King and his cause show the underlying racism that sat with too many people in this country. It is surprising that our country even passed the Civil Rights Act with these type of stats

    #8 President Ronald Reagan and Press Secretary McEnany used Martin Luther King’s words to support their agendas. Reagan claimed that Dr. King would have opposed affirmative action, went against Martin Luther King’s fight for equality in the workforce. Similarly, McEnany praised law enforcement using Martin Luther King’s speeches, even though King would have never supported the violence used against protesters. These two individuals twisted important words at their own convenience to support their own causes and not help Martin Luther King’s cause at all.

    #13 Pew research center gathered from a poll that 40 percent of voters voted that they “doubted that people could count on their right to peacefully protest,”. This was up 13 percent from 2018 which shows that this was related to the Black Lives matters protests which occurred in the summer of 2020. In addition, 60 percent of people voted that the statement, ‘the rights and freedoms of all people are protected,’ did not accurately reflect the country today. 80 percent of republicans voted that the right to protest was safe but only 43 percent of democrats voted for this.

    #16 I think some people were critical of the protests against police violence because we all grew up learning the police always protect us and are not dangerous. It is hard to grasp the harsh reality of the lives that have taken and the violence they have caused. Another reason is the amount of family ties, families with police officers in their family will not support protests against police officers, because they know that their family member is a good person. So many people are friends or family members with police officers and that connection causes contrast to what is happening around them in the news.
40. Arianna Shuboni-Ullmann May 1, 2023 at 11:35 pm

    1) American protests have been treated with a double standard in textbooks, when events happen or similar things follow they are greeted with abhorrence, but when put into our textbooks, we only get one perspective of one event that happened one time for that movement. For example, no POC people are quoting MLK in 2023. That is primarily white people. They really believe that MLK’s dream speech fixed America, and they never have to look past their gated communities to fact check, so that is all of the information that they have forcibly been poorly spoon fed by our public school system. Another thing that I find personally angering is how textbooks dumb down people and movements to make them less abrasive, for example Hellen Keller was a radical socialist with plenty of her own beliefs, but we are never taught about this, as it would, “anger certain people” and force them to change their world view.

    2) The Four misconceptions of the CRM movement are that firstly, they were the first of their kind, which is completely untrue. For example, there was another person protesting 100 years prior to Rosa Parks, which was the whole reason the law restricting her rights existed. Secondly, the idea that most Americans were pro-protest is and will always be wrong. People feel burdened or disturbed by protests, ignoring how it affects the grand picture, and instead just them in the moment. Also, politicians such as Donald Trump demonize protestors for advocating for their own and others’ rights, blaming the victims for policies that they are too lazy to fix, or flat out calling them criminals and rioters. Thirdly, the idea that protests quickly exposed and stopped hatred is untrue because a reform takes many protests, people, and sometimes mishaps to get itself off it’s feet and gain traction. This can take a short period of time, or very long. Lastly, the idea that protests in the 60s lead to a happy ending and brought complete racial equality to America is untrue, but something that many people believe regardless. MLK actually took back the words of his dream speech shortly before he was killed, voicing his skepticism and growing despair for America. Nobody is taught about this, as our white conservative society is very good at picking and choosing the certain quotes it wants to use to forward it’s own agenda.

    15) White Americans were a group in particular that was having issues comprehending BLM protest in the 2010s through 20’s because as a nation, our idea around structural racism is that after Dr. King’s speech happened, it was over. As a group that is not affected by aftershocks of unresolved race issues in America, white Americans don’t have to care because they aren’t personally hurt by many restrictive policies being protested, and can tend to detest these protests, using all too familiar words, such as that protestors are overreacting/overstepping, as well as victim blaming. Another growing factor is the belief that it is acceptable to request entry to a system, but not to challenge it if it treats certain groups unfairly.

    13) The Pew Research Center found that during the summer of August 2020, the republican party headed by Donald Trump began a no-nonsense campaign against the BLM protestors as well as other anti-police protests and movements. With the support from these large political figures, hatred spread and attitudes changed, as well as a national trust in our justice system faltered. People did not believe that they could count on their rights to protest some 20% higher than in the last decade.

    14) Some states cracked down on the right to protest in 2021 by challenging people’s rights to protest in all ways but banning it, the most extreme being if you block a street in Florida and get hit by a vehicle, the person who hits you with their vehicle would get away with no charges whatsoever. Other crazy legislation includes (even more) loitering laws, higher prison time with expensive bails, and the usual sending overfunded police departments to go use their military grade weapons on civilians. In my personal opinion, these states did not like the protestors because they challenged their worldview and way of life. They did not want to change, so they will continue trying to force everyone else in society to fit into what they want to see.
41. Isabella G Ruggirello May 1, 2023 at 11:38 pm

    2. In the time period of 1955-1968, there were many misconceptions about CRM, specifically, 4 different ones. The first common misconception about the Civil Rights movement was the fact people thought it was the first of its kind, though there were many starting points before the CRM that we know and learn about today. The second misconception, a very important one, was that the CRM did not end the brutal racial inequality that so many Americans faced. The 3rd misconception was the idea that the citizens gave all of their support to movements and movements, as well as the assumption they supported the American leaders. The 4th and final misconception ill mention is the failure to reduce racial hate and violence.

    3. The reaction to Plessy not moving from his seat in the train car, was to face the harsh Jim Crow laws, these laws enforced the racial segregation that we learn about today. The Jim Crow laws sat basically untouched until the 60s. The main reason for Rosa Parks’ arrest, was because of the Jim Crow laws, when she refused to leave the white section of the bus on request from the driver. Rosa Parks practically did what she did to bring attention to the issue of Jim Crow.

    4. There are many different events and people who resisted the segregated transportation laws, but the ones I found most interesting were the Freedom Riders. The Freedom Riders were a group of people, Black and White, who partook in what they called, Freedom Riders. They would take trains all over the South to protest against the segregated terminals. In 1946, they fought against the Supreme courts decision of Morgan v. Virginia, and they declared segregated bus/transportation seating was unfair and unconstitutional. they faced great backlash from White protesters, as well as police officers who often arrested them. Despite the heavy backlash, the Freedom Riders drew a high amount of attention to the Civil Rights Movement.

    6. I was very surprised at the outcome and poll numbers from the election of 1966. I believe the turnout of this election was due to the fact, though slavery was abolished way back in 1865, that didn’t stop whites from continuing to have the thoughts that they were somehow still inferior to Black people, and the fact they thought segregation was the right thing to do. The fact that 30% of African Americans thought the Civil Rights Movement wasn’t enough to bring the change they deserved was very disappointing. It seemed as though Black people were going to just start accepting the unfair discrimination until something further and/or stronger was done.

    7. Now, in school, we learn about Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King’s strong input to the Civil Rights movement. They both did so much to fight against segregation. But, in the South, some called them Communists, because they wanted to make it seem as though they were opposed to both racial inequalities and not just communism. People in the South also used to call Black schools Communist training schools, which was horrible. It’s important we learn about this history today in our classes so that we can truly understand the effects of the Civil Rights Movement and the effects of Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King.
42. sebastian forberg May 1, 2023 at 11:41 pm

    2. The first was that demonstrations from 1955-1968 were the first pushes for civil rights. Demonstrations started as early as 1892 when countless black men refused to move to the Jim Crow trolley. Protesters had also planned the Rosa Parks incident and thought about doing so for decades. The second was that most Americans supported the protests. During the time of the CRM, although we mainly look at only the people who fought for and supported it, many Americans still believed in segregation and Jim Crow laws. The third was that the CRM quickly exposed and vanquished hatred. The Civil rights movement, of course, came with extreme hatred and resistance from those who believed in segregation but even after the end of the CRM, hatred still lingered. The last misconception was that the CRM ended happily with racial equality in America. The effects of slavery, segregation and the Jim Crow era will linger in our society forever. Racism is still prevalent today with racist cops and racist hiring practices. The CRM was a great accomplishment for our country but it was only a step in the right direction. There is still further to come.

    5. I think that white people only understanding or seeing the evils of segregation at the start of the Civil Rights Movement is unbelievable. I think it is impossible to not see the lower class status that black people had at the time. Their facilities were so much worse than those of the white people and black people were seen as infected. Them saying that is only to make an excuse for segregation saying that they didn’t know when they obviously just wanted to keep them lower class and lesser in society.

    12. I think the author compared Jackie Robinson to Colin Kaepernick because he tweeted out the famous words of Jackie Robinson and stands for the same thing today. Jackie Robinson said he cannot salute the flag because he is a black man in a whites world. He compares them because Kaepernick is a civil rights activist in sports today and jackie robinson was back then.

    13. In august 2020, Pew Research found that 40 percent of respondents doubted that people could count on their right to peacefully protest. Which was up 13 percent from 2018. This means that from the recent protests people think that violence will occur if they protest peacefully or more that they will be stopped.

    16. I think some people were critical of protests against police violence because protests can become violent and some people do not want change. As we know, some of the protests can include breaking things, blocking streets and lots of noise. These things can turn violent and cause unnecessary harm. Some might be against protests because they did not see the cops as an issue and do not want them to change.
43. Jake B May 1, 2023 at 11:58 pm

    2.) One common misconception about CRM is that they protested to desegregate life. In reality, the CRM protested to show the whites the flaws of being separate but equal by using peaceful protests to demonstrate. Most African Americans fought against police brutality, economic equity, and equal voting rights. Another common misconception about CRM is that they were the first group to stand out against Jim Crow laws. Several other groups protested way before Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King. A specific example would be the Howard University protests, where several students protested against seating in a restaurant, similar to Rosa Parks. A third misconception about CRM is the kinds of demonstrations they did. Most Americans believed the Civil Rights protests were not good if they were passive. In reality, the protests that were passive and did not conform to white American standards gained the most publicity and kickstarted the Classical era of Civil Rights. The final misconception about the Civil rights movement was that it was to give Black people more rights than they had. In actuality, the purpose was for African Americans to gain the rights that they should have been guaranteed in the Fourteenth and fifteenth amendments.

    Many protests in our history books have been consistently treated poorly or entirely neglected as part of the AP curriculum. As a part of the AP curriculum, teachers must get as much content as possible and in doing so often have to cram in events towards the end. As a result of this gap, many textbooks fail to address the importance of certain protests in favor of boring laws which very few people find interesting. An example of this would be the Civil Rights Movement. As a direct result of time crunches for the AP test, textbooks do basically nothing to make the interesting topics interesting and instead give a long explanation into something or someone who nobody cares about.

    7.) During the 1950s people often feared anyone possibly communist as a direct result of WW2. Because of an ongoing fear of going to war again, many Americans had propagated ideologies of the Russian spy. Anyone who conformed against the norm was seen as an alien to your typical American. As a result, many Americans felt that protests from Martin Luther King as well as Rosa Parks were trying to force desegregation in order to get into the government. Another reason why people probably feared Rosa parks and Doctor King was because of the disease people feared they would get from even touching a black person. The fear of immigrants combined with the ongoing theme of communism lead to the white American putting blame on Doctor King and Rosa Parks because of the color of their skin. Today people worship them because of the significant contributions they made as the figureheads of the CRM.

    16.) Some people were probably critical of the protests during the police brutality of 2020 because of the negative press surrounding them. Most Americans were already distraught because of the pandemic and that combined with a corrupt law firm led to massive outcry and overall exaggerated the police as bad people giving everyone a feeling of distaste. The nastiness also reflects similar actions done by the KKK in the fifties in terms of cruelty. The distrust of police targeted especially to the African American community led to huge protests going against the police departments. People were most likely critical of the protests because of the negative press against the protectors of the land and also the fear of police department funding and lack of place made some Americans protest for the police.

    5.) The scenario is believable because of the division of the democratic party. Several white Americans were going through an identity crisis of their own because of big political figures and an overall cultural uprise of new ideas. People felt as though they were part of something. Several college students felt especially empowered to do something. Especially because of white bias, a group of white students seems like something realistic because of a change in cultural identity as well as the publicity gained from protests against segregation. The Civil Rights movement also started gaining momentum at this and a vast of array of new ideas dwelled among white people and inspired people much like LGBTQ+ idealoigies today to challenge the norm and in turn create the future of inclusivity much to disprove the governments beliefs.
44. Avery Betts May 2, 2023 at 12:01 am

    2. Describe the four misconceptions of the CRM from 1955-1968
    The first misconception about the Civil Rights Movement is that it was a new kind of demonstration, while in reality, the kinds of protests used were merely a continuation of the lengthy struggle for equal rights. Long before the 1950s, countless attempts had been made at challenging the segregated transportation system using nonviolent tactics, and sit-ins had already been fairly common a whole 20 years earlier. The second misconception is that the protests received a lot of support from the majority of Americans, when they were in fact very unpopular, instead supporting the violent acts by the police and their commissioner and condemning famous CRM leaders as communists. The third misconception is that the demonstrations brought a swift end to hatred and racism as a whole, even though it was really a long struggle against the large number of people who thought that nothing was wrong to begin with, and the fourth is that it successfully brought total equality to America by the time it was over, despite the new struggle of applying the gains made through new laws to daily life and the efforts still being made to achieve true structural equality.

    3. How did Alabama’s reaction to Homer Plessy’s protest on a segregated Louisiana train car directly lead to Rosa Parks’ arrest over 50 years later?
    Homer Plessy’s protest in Louisiana back in 1892 inspired many more people to refuse to accept the segregation of the public transport system, and those people were quickly arrested only to take it a step further and challenge the Jim Crow laws that had led to their arrest. This protest was met in 1896 with the ruling of the Plessy decision, which let cities all throughout the South to implement public-transportation segregation laws, which then faced petitions, boycotts, and picketing by local black communities, leading to the creation of a law in Massachusetts prohibiting such acts. That same law was the one Rosa Parks was arrested under, and so the snowball rolls.

    4. Provide at least one example of resistance to segregated busing and sit-ins that had happened BEFORE the first ones honored in the classic phase. Why has the author included these examples?
    In order to emphasize their point on the similarities between the “old” an “new” protests and demonstrate continuity from many years before the classical period of the CRM, the author includes examples of demonstrations made by activists before the classical phase began. One example is that of Pauli Murray, who, much like Rosa Parks and Homer Plessy, refused to remain at the back of a bus in 1940 and got arrested, eventually facing jail time rather than paying a fine.

    7. How can you explain the way that Parks and King were smeared as communists while they were alive but now are treated as iconic American heroes as great as any heroes America has produced?
    Even though public opinion of Parks and King quite frankly sucked while they were alive, the things that made them so controversial at the time have largely faded into the far corners of history, whether that be the affair that King had with another woman while he was married, or the reshaping of his beliefs to be a more neutral position, like how Reagan framed him to be against affirmative action in favor of true equality, or how McEnany used his words to try to keep BLM protesters at bay.

    13. What did the Pew Research Center find out about American attitudes in August 2020?
    In early August of 2020, the Pew Research Center polls found that 40% of Americans that took the survey “doubted that people could count on their right to peacefully protest, and 60% of Americans that participated did not believe that “the rights and freedoms of all people are protected”. This is likely as a result of the right to protest coming under fire in many different states, making it far more dangerous to take part in a protest.

    (2 minutes late doesn’t count, right?)
45. natehidalgo May 2, 2023 at 12:27 am

    2. There are four central myths that are widely believed to this day about the CRM movement. The first myth is that the protests were the first of their kind to deal with the racial inequality of Jim Crow laws. The second is that most Americans welcomed the protests and their leaders and saw that change was definitely needed. The third is that prejudice was rapidly exposed and reduced. Finally, the fourth is that racial inequity in America was eradicated.

    4. Pauli Murray served as a model of a bus boycott prior to Rosa Parks. In Petersburg, Virginia, a black woman who insisted on riding in the front of the bus rather than the back was punished with disorderly conduct. She didn’t pay the fine and was promptly imprisoned. The author used this example to demonstrate that black people have consistently been in opposition to the unjust Jim Crow laws and that some CR movements existed prior to the main movement in the late 20th century.

    5. Although many white people were aware of how unfairly black people were being treated, they showed little empathy for the racial discrimination that many African Americans faced. The article depicts a variety of protests that took place during the civil rights movement. The media widely publicized and covered a variety of protests, such as the boycotts of Homer Plessy and Rosa Parks. White people could clearly see what black people were fighting for, but most of them didn’t care due to the blatant racism in the South and the less overt but none less blatant bigotry in the rest of the country. Actually, only 5% really cared. Ending Jim Crow and giving black people equal treatment was a step too far for the vast majority of Americans (mostly white).

    8. Dr. King’s statements were exploited by President Ronald Reagan and press secretary, McEnany, to advance their respective agendas. Affirmative action goes for Dr. King’s campaign for equality in the workplace, hence Reagan’s assertion that Dr. King would have opposed it is wrong. In a similar vein, McEnany commended law enforcement while quoting from Dr. King’s lectures, despite the fact that Dr. King would never have approved of the brutality used against protesters.

    10. According to Ella Baker, restaurants weren’t about the food but rather about white people feeling a sense of superiority. Segregation and racial inequity affected black people in all spheres of their life, not only at diners. She wanted to educate people on how black people experienced something much bigger. She underlined the lack of actual equality and sentiments of inferiority. Similar to the BLM movement, she addresses systemic prejudice in her speech. Both movements centered on how America systemically discriminated against people of color from its inception.
46. Andrew Robinson May 2, 2023 at 12:29 am

    2. Describe the four misconceptions of the CRM from 1955-1968. The four misconceptions of the Civil Right Movement (CRM) from 1955-1968 were that 1. They were the first of their kind, 2. Most Americans gave support to their protests and their leaders, 3. They quickly exposed and vanquished hatred and discrimination, and 4. The classical-phased protests brought racial equality to the U.S. Firstly, the classical-phased protests were not the first of their kind. The classical-phased protests took a century of CRM history and combined it all into the 13 classical-phased years, which implied that the winning of Civil Rights was quick and easy, compared to the reality of more than a century of sacrifices and death. The next misconception was that most Americans supported Civil Rights movements and protests, with the reality being that most Americans hated or despised the CRM, (up until the 1990s). With 72% of white Americans interviewed saying they had a negative opinion of Martin Luther King Jr., most white people were outraged at the protesters rather than the police brutality and/or the white supremacist groups. Thirdly, the vanquishing of hatred and discrimination in the United States was a long and slow process. Asa Phillip Randolph realized it wouldn’t happen unless there was action taken, so he organized a massive march on Washington to demand equal rights. Even after President Roosevelt agreed to have more jobs for African Americans, it didn’t end the problem of segregation, and it wouldn’t end until twenty seven years later. The desegregation of life for African Americans was not a quick and or easy path to walk. Lastly, it was not the classical-phased protest that ended racial discrimination, it was the hard work of more than a century of protests and sacrifices of African Americans. The classical-phased protests played a big element in de-segregation, but it did not end racial inequality in the United States. The classical-phased protests was only the beginning of applying the newly won Civil Rights into everyday life. Overall, the four misconceptions of the 1955-1968 CRM were majorly mis-understood in the post 1968 era, and it wouldn’t be until the 1990s until these misconceptions became misconceptions.
    4. Provide at least one example of resistance to segregated busing and sit-ins that had happened BEFORE the first ones honored in the classic phase. Why has the author included these examples?
    Many Americans think that Rosa Parks was the first African American to stand up to segregated buses, those people would be wrong. In 1892, Homer Plessy did the exact same thing as Rosa Parks when she refused to give up her seat to a white man. This shows how Rosa Parks in the classical-phased era was not the first person to refuse participating in segregation, but, because of this popular classical-phase-era, Rosa Parks became the most famous. I think the author added the part about Plessy because it shows that just because someone does something first, fame is more important. Just because the CRM started after the Civil War, the mid 1950 – 1960s were more ‘important’ because they were more famous.
    6. How surprising are the poll numbers from 1966 about the country’s perception of the CRM to you? Explain.
    I think that the poll numbers are not very surprising to me. I know many former Klan members and/or racist southerners grew up with the belief in white supremacy, and it wasn’t normal seeing black people have rights. I think that older people are typically opposed to change compared to each younger generation. I know about the heavy anti-CRM beliefs from white people in the 1960s.
    7. How can you explain the way that Parks and King were smeared as communists while they were alive but now are treated as iconic American heroes as great as any heroes America has produced?
    I think it’s because of who wrote the history books, and because of the massive social change in our countries history each generation. When the history books were written in the 1960s, it painted Parks and King as communists because history was controlled and written by white supremacists, and they typically never told the just truth in favor of African Americans. It also has to do with the massive social change in each generation in the U.S. Every generation since the 1960s has been more liberal and accepting of new social changes, such as the acceptance of black heroes. Also, black historians got a chance to write history for what it truly was; unjust and cruel towards black people.
    9. How did A. Philip Randolph’s plan to have a March on Washington in 1941 motivate FDR to sign Executive Order 8802?
    Randolph (along with pro-CRM news sources) pressured the president into signing a bill allowing for the desegregation in the military. Even though Randolph didn’t get his wishes because the President signed only a ‘more jobs for African Americans’ instead of desegregation, it was still progress because it was better than nothing. Also, Randolph’s plan was to march on Washington with 100s of thousands of people, and that scared and prompted the FDR administration to sign the ‘more jobs for African Americans’ law.
47. William Dabish May 2, 2023 at 10:29 am

    1. Generally, acts of protest have been praised throughout American history. Since our first amendment directly states that we have the right to protest, many have revered and celebrated groups of people acting out for their rights.
    2. Many who are not familiar with history have certain conceptions about the CRM. They believe that the CRM convinced the nation quickly, that the fight over racism was an easily won fight, that the protests were started and ended in about a decade, and that protests should only fight over the most egregious of laws. All of these are false – racism stays prevalent in this country to this day, the fight for equality continues on today because of often overlooked bigoted policies, many Americans didn’t support the CRM at the time, and the CRM was never just about segregation; there were always other issues on the mind of the CRM, like police brutality and economic inequality.
    3. After Plessy’s actions on that train in June 1892, the case went to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, in one of the most famous cases of America’s history, ruled that the train had the right to move her. This led to pretty much every segregated state, including the state of Alabama, passing laws allowing segregation on public transportation. Then, after the ruling, there were protests throughout Montgomery. The law that they passed to outlaw “interfering with lawful business” was the one Parks was arrested under. Without these laws in place, there would be no need for Rosa Parks to have to protest herself. It’s depressingly ironic that a protest to gain rights ended up forcing another protest to occur 60 years later.
    4. There were plenty of sit-ins on buses happening throughout the South decades before Rosa Parks stayed seated on her bus. Pauli Murray refused to stay seated on the back of a bus and was arrested for disorderly conduct in 1940, over a decade before Rosa Parks did what she did. These pioneers often go unnoticed because they were before the “main Civil Rights period”, and Rosa Parks gets all the attention. Murray was just as brave as Parks in a time where protest was even less accepted than it was during the CRM.
    5. This story is not at all believable. White people were fully aware of the plight of black people. Generations passed of segregation, so white people were just used to it. The racism was all around them; they just didn’t care enough to work with black people. White people were (and are) in a place of privilege, and since very few protests directly affected them, they had no reason to care about black people’s issues.
48. Brock Kusiak May 2, 2023 at 11:29 am

    2. Describe the four misconceptions of the CRM from 1955-1968.

    There were four major misconceptions about the Civil Rights Movement and its place in history in American culture. One of these was that the demonstrations from 1955 to 1968 were the first of their kind. There had been many forms of protest on civil rights before the movement from 1955 to 1968, but they were either suppressed or just plain excluded from most history books. Another was that most Americans gave their support to the protests and their leaders. This is objectively false. Leaders like MLK saw great resistance towards their cause and would sometimes face great violence. Lastly, that they quickly exposed and vanquished hatred and that they ended happily by bringing racial equality to America.Racism and hatred would continue for years to come and it even still exists today. Even though the Civil Rights movement made great progress in eliminating inequality, the narrative that it’s completely gone is wrong.

    3. How did Alabama’s reaction to Homer Plessy’s protest on a segregated Louisiana train car directly lead to Rosa Parks’ arrest over 50 years later?

    Both Homer Plessy and Rosa Parks protested segregated transportation. Plessy’s actions in 1892 would lead others to follow suit, leading to a law segregating all transportation. Some years later, in 1902, a policy would be passed in Alabama making boycotting transportation punishable by law. 63 years later, Rosa Parks would follow in Plessy’s footsteps and boycott the Montgomery bussing system. This is the event that started the Civil Rights movement.

    4. Provide at least one example of resistance to segregated busing and sit-ins that had happened BEFORE the first ones honored in the classic phase. Why has the author included these examples?

    One example of resistance before the classical phase was bus boycotts prior to the one spurred by Rosa Parks. In 1940s Virginia, a woman named Pauli Murray decided to refuse to give up her seat on the bus. She had been studying nonviolent resistance from records of the likes of Gandhi and other famous peaceful protesters. She chose to spend time in jail rather than pay the fine in order to make a martyr stance. Another example is the protest of Irene Morgan. This also occurred in 1940s Virginia and followed the same structure, a white man asked her to give up her seat and she refused. The author put these lesser known examples in the text in order to show that boycotters and other protesters existed years before the classical phase and leaders of the Civil Rights Movement were inspired by protesters prior.

    7. How can you explain the way that Parks and King were smeared as communists while they were alive but now are treated as iconic American heroes as great as any heroes America has produced?

    During the height of CRM, many opposed the thoughts and opinions of the leaders of the movement. Many conservatives exploited a prominent fear of the time, communism. They would run smear campaigns and spread word that leaders like MLK and Rosa Parks were communists in order to drum up resistance against them. Even the director of the FBI J. Edgar Hoover testified in front of congress stating that there was “communist infiltration within the Civil Rights Movement”. MLK and Rosa Parks had also visited Highlander Folk School. This school had been rumored to praise communism and teach communistic ways, being nicknamed “Communist training school” further disparaging them. As time passed, opinions and sentiments changed. The people and the government as a whole began to shift to a more equal stance on race and they deemed those who bravely fought during the height of racial violence not as traitorous communists, but as heroes.

    8. How did President Reagan and Press Secretary McEnany misuse King to support their own agendas by knocking down a controversial topic of their time?

    President Ronald Reagan had used MLK’s words to say that King would have opposed affirmative action on discrimination in the workforce. Though King would oppose the ideas of Reagan, his words were used out of context to prove Reagan’s point. Press Secretary McEnany had also done the same with a quote from MLK. She used quotes from King’s speeches to support her belief that law enforcement should be praised, not reformed. Ironically, McEnany would use words from speeches that directly opposed the actions of law enforcement, stating they were violent, cruel, and unjust. In both cases, King’s words which were used to unite ended up being used to divide and go against the things he fought for.
49. Gillian Erickson May 2, 2023 at 1:27 pm

    2) There are 4 common misconceptions relating to the civil rights movement. This crm was the first of its kind, most Americans supported it, the crm destroyed racial hatred, it ended racial inequality.

    3) Homer Plessy’s protest on a Louisiana train car led to the famous court decision Plessy v. ferguson. This upheld the authority of separate but equal laws. This led to southern states allowing laws to pass that enforced racial segregation in public places like schools, restrooms, and transportation. Alabama was one of the states that enforced these laws with much passion. In fact, Alabama later became known for its harsh enforcement of segregation and resistance to the crm in the 1950’s and 60’s. One of the most well known events of the civil rights movement was the Montgomery bus boycott where Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white person in Alabama, 1955. Park’s act of civil disobedience gained national attention because of the Montgomery boycott that followed. Plessy’s protest didn’t directly cause Rosa Parks protest and the Montgomery bus boycott, but the lengthy history of systematic segregation in the South that was able to flourish after Plessy v. Ferguson was the real reason for Park’s arrest.

    9) A. phillip randolph was a well known african american labor leader who in 1941 threatened to lead a march on D.C. to protest an end to discrimination, especially in the business of defense. During this time WWII was fuming and the industrial industries were being rammed up to support the war effort. African Americans faced segregation and discrimination in the defense industry even though it was a huge employer. Randolph’s plan to march on Washington caught the president’s attention because it was a bold move. Roosevelt was worried that the march would disrupt the war effort and damage the country’s image. He also recognized the demand for equal treatment of African americans. In response to Randolph’s plan, Roosevelt signed executive order 8802 in June of 1941. This order prohibited racial discrimination in the defense industry. This marked a victory for civil rights activists and African American workers. Randolph played a significant role in getting the president to take action towards civil rights.

    11) The civil rights movement lasted throughout the 1950s and 60s and was marked by a series of non violent protests. Police brutality was one of the biggest things protested against at this time. Police brutality was a very common occurrence of this time. The crm used many tactics like sit-ins and marches to protest the issues. One of the most famous protests against police brutality was the Montgomery bus boycott which began after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white person. The protest lasted for about a year and consisted of African Americans refusing to ride Montgomery buses, protesting segregation laws. Another example of protesting against police brutality was the freedom rides of 1961. These were organized bus trips that were used to challenge segregation. Police enforced violence and brutal tactics on these protests and so did white supremacists. Many participants were put in jail but the protests helped to bring national attention to police brutality. The crm protests against police brutality was an important part of history because it challenged discrimination and segregation in the united states.

    13) According to the Pew Research Center, roughly 40% of Americans disapprove of protests and there is a 13% increase in people’s doubts about the viability of nonviolent demonstrations since two years ago. Additionally, 60% of people think that everyone’s rights are protected, but this is not true of America today. The study institute also revealed that a majority of Republicans support the right to peacefully demonstrate, believing it to be both necessary and safe.
50. Samantha Jacobs May 2, 2023 at 9:09 pm

    1. History books view American protests, whether individually or in groups, as, “a part of civic life- indeed, as an international human right,” (Kruse and Zelizer 197). Since day 1, America has been all about rights, and fighting for what we believe them to be. That’s the entire reason America even exists, and the continuation o fthat belief and practice has shaped not only America, but the world. At least, that’s what history books have taught me.

    2. The four misconceptions of the Civil Rights Movement from 1955-1968 are: 1) That the protests and resistance during this time, the time of “good” protests were original. In actuality, they were largely based off of and adapted from previous protests. 2) That Americans largely supported these movements. The truth is that the protests were only necessary because people didn’t support what the Civil Rights Movement fought for. People don’t protest to gain something that is already there. 3) That the protests were fast and efficient. Protests were long, messy processes that often resulted in injury, death, or incarceration. (I use “or” lightly.) 4) That the protests ended in equality. The Civil Rights Movement didn’t end in white people holding hands with black people. The world today doesn’t even have equality for people of color. While their rights may be the same, they are discriminated against in ways that both remain within and are against the law.

    4. Many people believe Rosa Parks was the first person of color not to give up her seat on public transportation for a white person. However, this is most certainly not the case. Not even by a long shot. First of all, Homer Plessy’s famous protest on a segregated Louisiana train car came over 63 years before the day Rosa Parks refused to move. The author chose to include this example to emphasize this point, and combat the common misconceptions of the Civil Rights Movement between 1955 and 1968.

    7. People in the era of the Civil Rights Movement smeared Rosa Parks and Dr. King as communists because racism at the time was unchecked. Delusions of black inferiority and the untrustworthiness of black people were, as well. Today, while there is certainly no shortage of racism, I would argue that it is not as extensive as back then. The generations that make up much of America today were raised after equal rights were legally instated. Americans have always prided themselves on being progressive, and there is, in my opinion, a great emphasis on the struggles we have faced. Whether it be personal, or cultural. Rosa parks and Dr. Kind were smeared back then because it was not socially acceptable to seem a person of color, any person of color, as equal or the same. If they were, they wouldn’t have had to give up their seat. Today, however, a generation or two later, with the commonplace opinion that the CRM was a great movement that brought equality, as the “good” protest misconceptions preach, we recognize how wrong our history has been, and use landmarks, such as Rosa Parks and Dr. King, to emphasize that point.