Kara Kazarian

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Major Assignment #3 Thesis Based Essay

Many may look at history’s protests and think they are pretty similar to the protests

happening now. The truth is that although superficial similarities exist, there are significant

differences between the attitudes towards protests/protesters, police handle the way protests, and

what protesters are fighting for. Most of the notable protests in American history were somehow

related to racial injustice and violations of populations’ civil rights to protest due to law

enforcement tactics. Exploring these similarities and differences in today's protests versus those

in history is vital to understanding why rallies fighting for black justice and liberation end in

violence and how they prove effective or ineffective. The most significant similarity that I will

explore is the mistreatment of protestors by law enforcement.

Protests against police brutality against blacks and racism have been going on since

before and after World War Two. A notable protest or series of protests were those in 1963 led by

Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference). King and his

supporters protested to call for the desegregation of various public facilities. Seemingly a

nonviolent protest at its start, it was shortly met with violence. Birmingham’s Commissioner of

Public Safety Eugene Connor ordered police and fire departments to meet the protestors with

guard dogs and fire hoses. His response to the protest went down in infamy. This decision

resulted in a rampage of Birmingham's business district. Blacks were angry with law

enforcement's response to the protest led by King and the SCLC. However, meeting violence

with violence turned out to be highly ineffective. The protestors were met with force and then, in

turn, resorted to violent tactics themselves, defeating the purpose of a nonviolent protest.
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Though the issues of the protests from the 1900s slightly differ from today’s issues, the

common thread between all is the disruption of peaceful demonstrations by police force. Author

Thomas Sugrue for National Geographic stated, “It was a pattern that would be repeated

hundreds of times over the next several years”(Sugrue), meaning that uprisings following those

of the past were met with police violence which turned them into violent uprisings. We even see

this pattern today because law enforcement has yet to learn practical techniques in controlling

protests and being better civil officers. We can see throughout history that the right to gather in

peaceful protest is constantly threatened by law enforcement and always has been. Sugrue argues

that the roots of 2020s ongoing protests go much deeper into history than those of the 1900s.

Those protests and uprisings back then were focused on gaining civil rights for black Americans,

race riots, and blacks protecting themselves from white violence and discrimination. These issues

are still present in American society today but to a different degree. Black people have gained

their rights and are no longer discriminated against in the workplace or public places; their

existence is still threatened by racism and police violence, just as it has always been.

Sugrue’s article goes on to note, “NAACP Executive Director Roy Wilkins published a

bestselling report that concluded that for many Blacks, “police have come to symbolize white

power, white racism, and white repression.”. Blacks felt this way because police always turned a

blind eye to the whites that caused violence at the demonstrations and instead only went after the

Blacks. The police never showed up to make sure the Black protestors were safe and that their

message could be shared; police showed up in hopes to silence Black voices and amplify white

voices. The reasons why people took to the streets in history differ from the reasons today. No

longer subject to a particular city or area of the United States, 2020s protests span nationwide,
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and everyone is fighting for the same thing. The murder of Blacks at the hands of police is a

driving force of today’s protests. This issue has gone on long throughout history, so why has

nothing changed even with protesters’ support? That is why I argue that not much has changed.

In the past, people protested for their rights and freedoms but were met with police violence;

now, people are fighting against the system. The system of unjust law enforcement, the system

that disproportionally kills Black individuals over white individuals, the system that makes no

changes even though its people beg and plead for it to do.

An examination of how protests go from good to bad at the hands of police is necessary

to explain my point. As stated before, the famed protest led by Martin Luther King Jr., supported

by the Black community of Birmingham, was met by fire hoses and guard dogs. What did the

leaders of Birmingham expect to come out of this display of force? Were the protestors supposed

to surrender and forget what they are fighting for just because of some threats? Law enforcement

officers have yet to figure out what the solution is to keep protests and demonstrations tame. The

funny thing is, most protests/demonstrations are organized to be tame, but police quickly jump in

and begin to cause harm to the crowds. An article written by Talia Buford, Lucas Waldron et al.

states, “unlike a mass demonstration urging action on an issue like climate change, the protests

over police brutality are directed squarely at the officers standing watch. Any use of force can

remind protesters what brought them into the streets in the first place and redouble their

outrage”. Seeing law enforcement threaten their demonstrations is frustrating because it’s the

last thing they want. In the same article, it states, “It’s impossible to view that escalation

(meaning the escalation from peaceful to violent) without taking race into account. Armed white

protesters upset about coronavirus mask requirements massed at the Michigan State Capitol,
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yelling in the faces of officers who stood calmly at attention. Meanwhile, protesters of all races

marching against police brutality against Black people were met with shocking uses of force”

this shows that race is taken into account in the way protests are handled. Even at the storming of

the capital (mostly by white people), there were hardly any arrests and hardly any killings or

serious injuries. History has proven that the result of a mass demonstration is that one would

have a much different, possibly more fatal outcome if Black people did it.

There are people who would argue against the idea that Black-led protests turn violent

because of police. Their reasoning is because preparing for the worst is what police are trained to

do. Police experts justify police antics by saying that police are told to view any threat as a large

one. Their idea is that instead of surveying the situation and determining the best way to handle

it, police should cause a disturbance in hopes of stopping potential violence. To some, this idea

makes sense, but for the large majority of protest supporters, it does not. At the January 2021

storming of the capital, which was a massive threat to the safety of house and senate members,

the people present there were not met with tear gas and rubber bullets. In contrast, those

marching for the justice of George Floyd were met with those very acts of force. Whites have

always been protected when trying to make a stand, but Blacks haven’t. Protestors usually

understand what they could be getting into, and the terms of how the demonstration will go are

often discussed beforehand. Experts say that “the police may err on the side of intervening if

they see a single person acting out even if everyone else is following the rules (Talia Buford,

Lucas Waldron, et al.). Most people don’t understand how this can be justified. An article written

by Maggie Koerth and Jamiles Lartey for The Marshall Project looked at data from federal

commissions about violence at protests and noted the conclusion that, “...when police escalate
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force—using weapons, tear gas, mass arrests and other tools to make protesters do what the

police want—those efforts can often go wrong, creating the very violence that force was meant

to prevent. Police act in the way they do so that they can make arrests and try to prove that no

protest can ever really be peaceful. Years of research exists to show that implied force or actual

acts of intimidation prove to be highly ineffective, but as we have seen, police have yet to learn

this lesson. It’s truly a vicious cycle that hopefully will one day be broken.

Protests to fight for Black justice and against police brutality have gone on much too long

for them to have little to no impact. People are left stumped as to what more can be done to get

theory messages heard clearly. It is essential that changes are being made to how police handle

protests and how they do their jobs in general. At this point, reform or abolition seem to be

sought-after solutions. When we look at today’s protests, we must thank those in the past for the

work they’ve put into the fight. It is clear that the people of America must finish their fight.

Lives were lost and continue to be lost, but until justice can be achieved, the streets and social

media will be filled with voices of all ages and races. Everyone fighting together to end the

issues of racism and police brutality still cast their dark shadow over American society.
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Works Cited

Buford, Talia, et al. “We Reviewed Police Tactics Seen in Nearly 400 Protest Videos.

Here's What We Found.” ProPublica, 16 July 2020,

projects.propublica.org/protest-police-tactics/.

Koerth, Maggie, and Jamiles Lartey. “Why So Many Police Are Handling the Protests

Wrong.” The Marshall Project, The Marshall Project, 1 June 2020,

www.themarshallproject.org/2020/06/01/why-so-many-police-are-handling-the-protests-wr

ong.

Sugrue, Thomas J. “2020 Is Not 1968: To Understand Today's Protests, You Must Look

Further Back.” History, National Geographic, 10 Feb. 2021,

www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/2020-not-1968.