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    Marcus JuliusErving Huggins
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    Response paper with instructor comments

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    34 views4 pages

    Response Paper (W/comments)

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    Marcus JuliusErving Huggins
    Response paper with instructor comments

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    Huggins 1 Marcus Huggins Instructor: Brenda Tindal HONR 3700-HO4 September 23, 2014 Critical Response Paper #1 When thinking about the Civil Rights movement, what comes to mind? Martin Luther King’s speech while nearly 200,000 Americans gathered at the Lincoln Memorial ae oe to participate in the March on Washington? What about the Montgomery Bus Boycott of ) oe x . eo Rosa Parks, the sit-ins, and the freedom rides? While these events highlight the wiewor- UT? aw For wchish Gel apt sete + Oe st “common” understanding of the Civil Rights movement—lassical civil rights -*¢s¢ 2 lens to ao He movement—there also lies a perspective from the local viewpoint of the people who Clasueet o. w actually lived during that time period that often gets overlooked @.ooking at Steve ae ws as * Lawson and Charles Paynes’ book, Debating the Civil Rights Movement, 1945-1968, of wey ae ye Es Lawson describes the “main” events or classical civil rights movement in his section “A eae ger, View from the Nation,” while Payne discusses the local or underrepresented events of the ono," 20 civil rights movement in his section "A View from the Trenches." Due to America’s “erperny . ‘ocularcentric nature of preserving history, most people remember or lear the civil rights movement from the classical perspective; however, the view from the trenches is also Roe very essential to the remembrance and perseverance of the Civil Rights movement. Bo . 2 eo ye Before going further into the debate of civil rights representation, one must know 5 vi * the essence of visual culture within American history. James Cook describes that the Ae $671, principle of visual representation is leading to the ocularcentric depiction of history Huggins 2 Co (Cook, 441). He states that the cause of this ocularcentric depiction is “not only out of “Ome nalve notion that it was possible to control that terrain fully or consistently,” but that “they recognized that representation and self-determination are inextricably linked” (Cook, 441). He further goes on to say that “In a public sphere increasingly driven by mass-circulated images, the ways we see are never simply the stuff of sensory experience—they are also part and parcel of a new kind of politics” (Cook, 441). Cook is basically explaining his notion that the American system uses vis jon or images to control political affairs due to the fact that there seems to be a correlation c_ between image and self-esteem. This idea of using imagery to affect self-respect was oN et” greatly demonstrated during the civil rights through the use of caricature, as well as, « 3, ee media, to portray A frican-American’s as “inferior.” Steve Lawson's main argument in his section “A View from the Nation,” is the importance of the federal governments role, as well as national organizations, in “shaping the fortunes” of the civil rights movement (Lawson, 3). Lawson’ classical perspective = such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Brown v. Board of Education, Little Rock Nine, freedom rides, sit-ins, March on Washington, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ust to] Yar og name a few. Without varioy{ president: 8 lawmakers and members of the © — ; yh? ‘Supreme Court’s legal aid, Lawson states that the struggle of white supremacy > Qo, ee ‘segregation in the South still would have taken place (Lawson, 3). Furthermore, Lawson eo explains the importance of national organizations such as the National Association for the oem ‘Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Southem Christian Leadership wy gr Conference (SCLC), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), as well as other wr a m Huggins 3 Organizations. These national organizations could do what Africar-Americans in most local communities could not achieve alone: pressure the federal government into overturning the prolonged, entrenched system of white supremacy by tuming the civil Fights dilemma into national cause. « uo deo tre teurshesy On the other hand, Charles Payne strays away from the typical notion of describing the Civil Rights movement as the American South having a long tradition of racial oppression and that the weight of American Institutions were brought forth to bear ot the problem of civil sighs. Instead, Payne describes the importance of local perspective \\% Ce, when considering the Civil Rights movement as a whole. He asks many questions Se o ipthiresinn Vw onesie epeeenbw they would summarize the civil rights movement; from a classical perspective, or taking cee in the consideration of the various interpretations of local civil rights activist who we participated in the movement. With this in mind, Payne explains that the way people rights movement is only illustrated by the way they remember the remember the ci Jarger movement (Payne, 47). He exemplifies that we tend to “construct our memories in Ore AW Hecempllia te ways which make us feel good:” however, these memories obscure us from the main purpose of the movement (Payne, 47). “The way we think about that period continues to shape how we think about race relations in our time and how we think about the larger problem of creating a more just society” (Payne, 2). This implies that our perception “\ ( __Broblem of creating amore just society” (f the past will continue to shape the way we think about race to this day. Considering both Payne and Lawson's arguments, I agree that the civil rights movement should be looked at as a whole rather than just considering it from a national or “classical” perspective. I feel it is important to remember the Civil Rights movement IN Nh i per “ woe TY td ayes Oe rg ee Sah 4 Put Ww from a}ong civil rights perspectivelin order to account for various interpretations, I feel thatthe local viewpoint allows us to understand how America has progressed to the point itis today, Without knowing what occurred throughout the Civil Rights movement, @ sense of American history~as well a history in general—is lost. Visual and tangible objects tellus about American's racial past and future. The film The Butler embodies the re historiographical traditionsdebates reflected in Lawson's "A View from the Nation” and Paynes’ "A View from the Trenches" by highlighting many major events that occurred Ihroughout the classical civil rights movement as well another perspectiv' ‘parvalor as he experiences first-hand the causes and effects associated with these major vents from a local standpoint, The butler’ disapproval of his son’s activist actions sonradits the national viewpoint belie that all Afian-Amereans W2rs PFO mo \ gy Specific

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