CIVIL RIGHT WHAT ARE THEY

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38° 59' 36.3876" N, 96° 52' 40.7748" W

Equality is important with civil rights because it means being treated equally. Civil rights are important to all Americans. Obama becoming President was very important to a lot of people including other civil rights leaders that always wanted something like that. Since Obama is President it doesn't mean that racism is over because even though its not as bad as it used to be. There are still people that hate the fact that a black man is the president. This country has achieved equality in many different ways such as having African Americans doing jobs that other people do. Race is a divisive issue in so many countries because some people may feel that they dont want to be around another race. I think that Obama's election will affect racism in the U.S.A and around the world because him being where he is now just might make things worst even though us as African Americans doesn't look at it that way.

In Bill Cosby's "Pound Cake Speech" he made very good points that can relate to Civil Rights. He mentioned how children grow up to be only what they know or is used to and all the parents do is stick up for the kid even if their wrong. That has something to do with Civil Rights because thats giving other races the right to look down on the black race and say whatever they want and not want things to change or to be a better person. I think that he's basically trying to say that if I can be a better person why not do that if we have people who died for us to be treated equally. For example when he said that "Its not what they're doing us, its what we're not doing."

The short story Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was trying to explain how life would be if everybody were the same and nobody was better than anybody else. People that were smart would have a earpiece placed inside their ears so that if they would think about something or try to correct someone it would make a noise that would distract them and then they would forget. When George and Hazel Bergeron son was killed after he had escaped from prison they weren't even aware of what was going on because they would forget about many things and only knew what a average person knows. George Berergon started to think about Harrison and then the earpiece had a noise of a twenty-one-gun salute in his head which had stopped him from thinking about it. At that time a average person thought about things but only in short bursts. Equality in this story is different compared to the way people wanted it to be.

The Forerunner poems explain how the African Americans wanted equality and respect from the whites. These poems predict that one day everything is going is going to end and the blacks will live the way they want. In the poem "Jim Crow:The Sequel" it mentioned how a president once said "We seek not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and as a result." I think that means that even if African Americans were treated equally it wouldn't mean anything unless they really seen the change. Other poems like "We wear the mask" by Paul Lawrence Dunbar explains how we might carry ourselves like nothing is wrong but deep down we know what we deserve and what is right for us.

John Hope Franklin was an African American who helped to further the civil rights struggle. He was able to work teach at some of the best colleges such as Cornell, Harvard, and Cambridge University. His life was an good example of how civil rights was achieved because blacks weren't able to do things like that, and to see a African American man that was educated was something people thought they would never be able to see. This obituary lets people know that they can do whatever they want and that you shouldn't let others put you down or make you feel like their smarter then you.

President Obama gave a speech about race that talked about how even though we are different races we are still one. He used himself as an example by talking about how his father was an African American and his mother was a white woman from Kansas. That's a good way of letting people know that there are people that don't care about the way others think or what they say because at a time with people being segregated a white woman and a black man wouldn't be together. Listening to his speech lets people know that there are other important things that need to be done other than all these different races not wanting to get along.

Barak Obama gave a speech to the nation from Congress saying that "a challenge we must address is the urgent need to expand the promise of education in America." Education is a big problem in the United States because there are so many students that dropout. President Obama feels that by 2020 more students will even start graduating from college. He mention how schools have been giving a lot but that's not what they need anymore they need reforms. William Julius Wilson addresses race an civil rights in an interview with Leonard Lopate

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Comments

jwiener

This piece gives excellent examples of how civil rights have been addressed in the past. Have you thought about turning this into a collection of poems? You could make one poem for each event you wrote about. Or, maybe you could make a video using all of your examples. Keep writing, and check out the "Resources" section for some inspiration and tips!

Grant-Grey Porter Hawk Guda

Powerful expression! 

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