Standing on our belief by Joyce ladner is the portrayal of the thirst for freedom from racism, advocacy for better wages and other rights for the black Negros in the 1960s. The August Washington march was a culmination of suppressed mass protests and civil rights demonstrations that had seen protestors brutally beaten, chased by dogs and arrested by the federal agents, police and part of the white racist community.
Joyce ladner then, a 19-year-old teen and a civil activist was part of the Student Non-violent Coordinating committee (SNCL). She actively participated in the march as SNCL representative and paid her share of price in the war against racism; received expulsion from Jackson State College for civil rights protests.
50 years past nothing has changed. The same racism that was there is still there but with a non-violent face. Racism is still evident in that there are twice the number of black offenders as whites in federal, non-governmental prisons and correctional faculties. This is despite the fact that drug use among the white population is as rampant as in the blacks. The black neighborhoods have fewer resources, less development and stringent law enforcement. Even though America and the world seem to intensify the fight against racism, much still happens under huge banners. The recent killing of a black youth, Michael brown in Fergusson is evidence that many more fall under the brutality of police.
If time would revert, I would be a protestor in 1960s, championing for the equality and fair treatment of all races in America. The battle against racism lives forever and as a black American, I long to see the day racism is wiped out totally. By joining the freedom summer movement and other like-minded organizations that advocate against racism eventually, we will have victory. Just like Phillip Randolph, Jim Farmer, John Lewis, Roy Wilkens and martin Luther king faced challenges from the police and revolutionized change in legislation, we, faced by same issues will make our move through the freedom summer movement. Am encouraged by the fact that through the struggles, King’s speech’ I have a dream’ even though delivered when racism was as its peak, still inspires and urges me on in this fight
Works Cited
- Abayomi Azikwe . Police killing of African American Youth Galvanized the struggle against Racism in the US. August 25, 2014. 3 October 2014.
< www.globalresearch.ca/police-killing-of-african-american-youth-galvanised-the-struggle-against-racismin-the-u-s/5397638.>
