Despite polls that indicate a majority support among the 99% with the over-arching theme behind Occupy, there remains a discrepancy between the 1,500 who showed up in DC Tuesday night and the rest of the 99%.

 Why?

In a society of immediacy, change is a smoky concept.  While Occupy has succeeded in forcing open dialogue on political-economic corruption, resolution has failed to materialize overnight, which consequently has people questioning the effectiveness of the movement (in macro-political culture, this explains growing public opposition to the Afghanistan conflict and misunderstandings of time relative progress).  The fallout of perceptions of failure concerning the movement have essentially begun to reinforce opposition rhetoric and shore up mostly subjective conservative perceptions that the movement is defined by an entitlement mentality of pampered middle class kids.  This is an incredibly distracting image, one ill-enforced by a single protestor in pajamas barking about what democracy does and does not look like.  The primary issue with Occupy is the lack of measurable benchmarks and action to compliment modern perceptions of time and progress, which is why we have a disconnect between the theme that has given birth to Occupy and Occupy’s attraction to the general populace. 

As Clayborne Carson, director of the MLK Papers Project at Stanford, points out that Occupy needs to borrow notes from the civil rights movement and “create a 10-point plan.”  National coordination and cooperation between the Occupy movements with measurable checkpoints is an absolute must.  The movement needs to demonstrate that it is capable of doing more than simply harangue Congress, otherwise what’s the difference between the whining protestors and sedentary politicians?  Carson continues to remark that the movement “needs come critical thinking” and that it needs to “start identifying solutions that are pragmatic, that we can do now.”

Mentality and outreach on an individual level is an absolute necessity.  Expecting politicians to enact regulations or clean-up mechanisms to combat inherent systematic corruption is watery at best.  University chapters, grassroots solutions, and other engagement activities with a moderate, constructive approach are a must.  The system is the way it is because the 99% passively entrenched it.  Credit card debt, rash discretionary spending, and popular culture directly reflect that undeniable fact.  Unless the movement begins to critically do some in-house cleaning, it will remain epitomized by the pajama protestor hanging from a traffic light declaring, “This is what democracy looks like!”

Because if that’s the case; hell, I’d rather keep Congress.         

Despite his non-violent approach, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968.  Unlike our contemporary heroes; Tupac Shakur, Biggie Smalls, and many others, we don’t celebrate the death of Martin Luther King Jr.  No one goes onto Twitter or Facebook, the event passes by as though it was just another ordinary day.  There are no top trending topics or any other reminders.

Instead, we celebrate the struggles that Martin Luther King Jr. and others during the civil rights endured during Black history month.  I think of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement when I watch movies like The Help, or any other contemporary film that deals with the struggles that African-Americans went through during the 20th century, such as Red Tails.

I often wonder what Martin Luther King Jr. would think about the 21st century, or this new millennium.  The struggles of the civil rights movement appears to be behind us.  We have a new Black president, people who want to date people of other races can do so without repercussions and there are not any anti-miscegenation laws on the books making it illegal for you to get married outside of your race.  Affirmative action has put millions of young Black women into administrative, paralegal, and clerical roles; giving them a foundation through which they can ascend the corporate ladder if they choose to get their education and further themselves.

I often wonder if Martin Luther King Jr. ever thought the day would come when Black women are the head of the household, and Black men are in a diminished, emasculated, disfranchised, disaffected and apathetic role.  You can blame the White man, you can blame angry Black women, but a lot of the blame should be put on ourselves.  We rarely reach back into the void to pull another brother up out of the darkness when we do make it.  Mentoring seems to be an abstract concept, and too many of us would rather run the streets than pave the streets.

Too often we are in a position of getting a handout, instead of a position of ownership.  We talk about where we are from, but to be honest, you could be from New York, LA, Atlanta, Chicago or Tokyo, if you do not own anything, if you are not employing anyone, if no one depends on you one may as well not exist.  One day we will get it right, but until we do we always have the civil rights movement to look back at for encouragement.

One of Martin Luther King’s most famous speeches are:

“I have a Dream” By Martin Luther King  :

Mountain Top By Martin Luther King 

As you can see from the Videos Martin luther king was a Very wise man and was very powerful influence to people and until this day we still follow by what he tought us!

He is one of the Great that left us too soon only at the age of 39 

This is in memory of Martin luther king. May you be Free at last! 

Born in Atlanta, Georgia on January 15th, 1929, King was destined for greatness from the very beginning, it seems. By the time he was 15, he was already going to college. By the time he was 26, King was already an ordained pastor and had earned a doctorate in theology.

Married at 24 to Coretta Scott, the King family consisted of Dr. and Mrs. King and four children.

Though the degrees King held and at what age he earned them, these are minimal accomplishments compared to his place in our nation’s history. In the short time that King led the civil rights movement, more of an impact was made than in the entire time period prior.

“On the 25th anniversary of the King Federal Holiday, we still have work to do to realize Dr. King’s dream.  MLK Day of Service is the perfect time for Americans to answer Dr. King’s challenge to do something for others.  Just as Dr. King set big goals and focused relentlessly on results, we need sustained citizen action to address today’s social challenges.”

Just as he did in his life, the holiday honoring his service is our nation’s call to action for individuals. This Day of Service has grown into an organized and important day for Americans to do something to help in their communities and make the country better overall.

“The MLK Day of Service is a way to transform Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life and teachings into community action that helps solve social problems. That service may meet a tangible need, or it may meet a need of the spirit. On this day, Americans of every age and background celebrate Dr. King through service projects that strengthen communities, empower individuals, bridge barriers, and create solutions.”

If you’re interested in finding projects to do on this national day of service, you can easily find projects to participate in for your community.

Dr. King participated in numerous non-violent protests in the name of civil rights, including bus boycotts, protesting the arrest of Rosa Parks, and countless other non-violent protests. He was pivotal in turning the civil rights movement into results. Because of his deication to civil rights, he was arrested a total of 30 times.

Toward the end of his life, his goals encompassed more than only civil rights.

His most famous speech is, “I have a dream,” which can be found online on the American Rhetoric web site. Full text and audio are available for Dr. King’s most famous speech.

“While Dr. King preached about justice, empowerment, love and peace, in the final months of his life, his attention was turned to fighting poverty. Sadly, more Americans live in poverty today than during Dr. King’s lifetime. Forty-seven million Americans currently fall below the poverty line.”

I’m sure that King would’ve had the same impact on the United States and the world had he not been assassinated, but the details of his death drive his point and message home with a force to be reckoned with. On April 4th, 1968, a white segregationalist named James Earl Ray shot Dr. King in cold blood. Ray was too late – King had already made an unstoppable impact and changed the course of history before his death, and his assassination just made him a more beloved leader.

“During the less than 13 years of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s leadership of the modern American civil rights movement, from December 1955 until April 4, 1968, African Americans achieved more genuine progress toward racial equality than the previous 350 years had produced.” (From The Martin Luther King Jr. Center)

This is amazing progress by any standards, and Dr. King is the man responsible for pushing the movement in a forward direction to making a difference in society and the American culture. A successful, wise, and strong person from the very start. Dr. King is an integral part of our history and worked to drive his message home to everyone, raising the sympathy, understanding, and values of society.

The best way to honor Dr. King and his incredible impact on our lives is to participate in a community service or volunteer project on Monday, January 16th, which marks the 25th anniversary of the holiday.

The Civil Rights Movement was a major movement that brought about many changes for African Americans. In Michael Goldfield’s piece, The Emergence of the Civil Rights Movement, he tells of an example of one of those changes when he states that the, “1954 Brown v. Board of Education… case… [had] outlaw[ed] segregate[ion in] schools” (264). There were many similar cases before this one and cases that followed this one.  These cases gave African Americans and other minorities more power legally but were the legal powers given to them only temporary?

The very rights that African Americans had achieved through the Civil Rights Movement have been diluted by the mass incarceration of men of color. Michelle Alexander argues in, The New Jim Crow, that, “Mass incarceration has been normalized, and all of the racial stereotypes and assumptions that gave rise to the system are now embraced (or at least internalized) by people of all colors, from all walks of life, and in every major political party (176). She is saying that people, even minorities, have come to see people of color and associate them with certain crimes, so that it is not as big of a surprise to them when they see those same men imprisoned. These stereotypes have become ingrained within us over time and generations. These stereotypes help promote the imprisonment of minorities.

When imprisoned you are stripped of your rights and when you get back on the streets you don’t get those rights back. By focusing arrests in predominantly African American and minority neighborhoods, there is more of a likelihood of finding more black men doing illegal things. Even after these men are freed from the incarceration system they sometimes have a parole officer. The parole officer becomes ‘big brother’ and is constantly monitoring them after imprisonment, looking for any possible violations to send them back to prison. They have already lost their right to vote and thereby their political power legally but may not be able to protest either as this could send them back to prison. It is easier to be sent back to prison for them and that fear keeps them submissive and under the thumb of the powerful people in the government. Keeping minorities off of the streets and limiting their rights through incarceration keeps the minorities from rising up and becoming a dominant source of political power against the Conservative powers.

Affirmative Action seemed to help the working class avoid some of these economic fears but brought about a fear of your neighbor which is seen through the formation of the Minutemen. The Minuteman Project was brought about in 2004 because a lot of Americans had fear put into their minds that the immigrants that were coming over the border from Mexico illegally were taking their jobs. This group was formed of organized white American men. The group saw Mexicans as taking over and getting lots of benefits for illegally entering their country. According to Leo Chavez, as written in The Minuteman Project’s Spectacle of Surveillance on the Arizona-Mexico Border, the minutemen believed that an, “imminent danger to all Americans… [was that] rights and privileges of citizenship… were losing their value as a result of immigration” (134). The minutemen were focused on the illegal aspect of immigration. This stance that they took was not actually true as illegal immigrants do not have the same “rights and privileges of citizenship” because they are not citizens. The Minutemen used, “statistics… [to help] construct [a] rhetoric of fear” (Chavez 135). The Conservatives instilled the fear in the Minutemen and the Minutemen were going to further instill this fear into the masses of America. The Minutemen were unknowingly working for the Conservative party, in that they were doing the legwork for them. They didn’t see the government showing any effort to keep the illegal immigrants out of the United States, and the statistics seemed to show that they were right, so they decided to take the enforcement of the border on themselves. They showed action because they wanted something to be done and they wanted others to join their cause. The statistics helped them because when you look at numbers they sometimes seem daunting, especially in the case of illegal immigration. They were instilling the fear as the Conservatives had done in the past. The Conservatives realized that by just suggesting an idea to the working class, they would instill the fear in themselves. All they had to do was wait. By the Minutemen targeting illegal immigration specifically they were focusing on the, “notion of criminality… invoked [by] the ‘breaking into the country’ image” (Chavez 136). This act of “breaking in” invoked fear. If they can break into our country so easily what else can they do? By viewing the immigrants in this light, the Minutemen are losing focus on the goals of the working party to achieve balance with the elite, with regards to rights and opportunities.

The very thing that helped activists to gain rights throughout the Civil Rights Movement was now being impeached upon to limit those rights. Race and gender consciousness was the thing that Conservatives used to fight for what they wanted without doing any work. Nancy Maclean told of this in her piece, Conservatives Shift From Massive Resistance to Color-Blindness, when she reiterated the Conservative stance on Affirmative Action, as altered to fit the time. Conservatives said, “Affirmative action… abused the civil rights of others and was itself discriminatory” (Maclean 226). By instilling fear that one race was getting more than the other people started to question why and where those rights came from. ‘Am I getting less because they’re getting more?’ is the fear based mentality that was becoming prevalent at the time. This fear based in ‘more or less’ mentality was one of the major reasons for the formation of The Minuteman Project.

Though the Civil Rights Movement is said to be from the 1950’s to the 1980’s there are still people fighting for civil liberties today, such as the illegal Hispanic immigrants of Mexico, Central and South America. On an international level, because of Conservative influence Mexicans are now being seen, even more so than in the past, as an infiltration taking over the country. In reality, Mexicans are good for business and bring a lot of benefits to people throughout the country. Businesses want to employ Mexicans as they are a means of cheap labor. They accept much less monetary compensation than they are actually worth for all of the work that they do. For example, by Mexicans working in the food industry, it lowers the cost of labor for the employer and allows the business owner to offer you food at a lower price as well. Through Mexican’s denizen labor, you are saving a lot of money as a business owner or as an average citizen. These negative feelings toward Mexicans could be the start of negative feelings towards other immigrants as well.

The United States is founded on immigration. It has the values of equal opportunity and fair and equal treatment for all. This act of not treating immigrants fairly could be seen by other immigrants as a reason not to come to the United States and help the country advance itself. This fear mongering, especially as is seen in the case of The Minuteman Project, intended to make Americans shy away from immigrants may cause more harm than good. If we are seen as not wanting to help ‘outsiders’ and see everyone as a ‘potential threat’ then who will our allies be? If we have a constant fear instilled in us as Americans and we show this fear, this weakness, to alien (foreign) countries why would they protect us in our time of need?

W.E.B. Du Bois as quoted in the, The Emergence of the Civil Rights Movement, said, “it is a fight for ideals, lest this, our common fatherland, false to its founding, become in truth the land of the thief and the home of the Slave” (Goldfield 262). Through hindsight we can see that these words, though stated many years before, were like a premonition towards the future state of America. Our fight for ideals through activism is what makes us have any rights at all, but “in truth,” what we have is not really much. Through implementations of various programs which we see as helpful, this hierarchical system has made us weak in our efforts to rise against its predominantly Conservative counterpart. Over time we have become blinded by the programs put in front of us that are meant to suppress the masses. We have accepted these programs as gifts, not realizing that by having them successfully implemented we are just like a crying child who has been given a pacifier. By accepting the Conservatives in power, we are doing nothing. We have become pacified. Why change a system that has so much going for it? Our fight for “ideals” has been given up and we are living in the delusion that our society is free when in fact we are living in, “the land of the thief and the home of the Slave”.

Works Cited

Alexander, Michelle. “The New Jim Crow,” in The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the

Age of Colorblindness, p. 173-208.

Chavez, Leo. “The Minuteman Project’s Spectacle of Surveillance on the Arizona-Mexico

Border,” in The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation. (2008), p.132-151.

Goldfield, Michael. “The Emergence of the Civil Rights Movement,” in The Color of Politics:

Race And the Mainsprings of American Politics (1997), p. 262-287 (287-295 optional).

Maclean, Nancy. “Conservatives Shift From Massive Resistance to Color-Blindness,” in  

Freedom is Not Enough: The Opening of the American Workplace, p. 225-249.

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From 1955 to 1965 there was a war right in the middle of America.  No, it wasn’t a war like World War II or the Revolutionary War.  It was a war for the heart and soul of this country to determine once and for all if America was really going to be a land of equal opportunity for all.   It is a war that eventually took on the name of “The Civil Rights Movement.”

We must make no mistake, this was not just a shouting match.  Some of the events that we even remember today became quite brutal and deadly.  Those who fought in this war on both sides were deadly serious about the causes they represented and willing to fight and even die to see their cause succeed.  The war waged for years and steady progress was made but not without tremendous sacrifice by the leaders of the movement who were committed to a giving a new meaning to the phrase “set my people free.”

In all of black history, there may be no more significant a time since the Civil War when the rights of African Americans were so deeply fought and won.  The tensions in the country had been building.  When the Supreme Court mandated desegregation in the schools in the historic case Brown versus the Board of Education, the stage was set.  But it was on December 1, 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama to a white man that the movement finally took shape and became a titanic struggle for the rights of African Americans in America.  That first battle brought to the front line one of the most important figures to fight for Civil Rights of that era, the Reverend Martin Luther King.

This tremendous struggle for freedom was never easy and was often marked with violence.  Over the next ten years some of the most important milestone in black history took place including…

*        1957 – President Eisenhower had to send federal troops to Arkansas to secure admission to Central High School by nine black students.

*        1960 – The sit-in at Woolworths lunch counter in Greensboro North Carolina set the stage for nonviolent protest that was used with great success for the rest of the struggle.  Nonviolent protest and civil disobedience became a staple of the civil rights movement because of the influence of Martin Luther King.

*        1963 – The historic March on Washington in which over 200,000 people gathered to hear Dr. Kings famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

*        1964 – President Lyndon Johnson signed the bill that was the most significant event of his presidency and one he believed deeply in, the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

*        1965 – The assignation of Malcolm X and the Watts race rights.

*        1965 – President Johnson takes another bold step to accelerate the civil rights movement implementing Affirmative Action when he issues Executive Order 11246.

This short list is just a few of the highlights of this troubled time in which the rights of all citizens of American, black and white and of all colors were being redefined both on the streets, in the courts and in the different branches of government.  In the years to come there would be great steps forward.  One by one, every area of American life would see breakthroughs by African Americans in the areas of sports, entertainment, education and politics.  There were many proud moments and there were moments of tremendous shame and heinous acts committed by both white and black people.  But through all that struggle, the society continued to grow and adapt to the will of the people as has always been the tradition in American culture.

The struggle is far from over.  Discrimination and hate speech continue to be a problem to this day.  And while it is easy to reflect on those days of struggle with regret, we can also look at them with pride.  We can be proud of the great leaders who demonstrated tremendous courage and wisdom to lead this nation to a better way of life.  And we can be proud of America because it is here where such a struggle can result in equality and freedom for all citizens, not just a few.

We must make no mistake, this was not just a shouting match.  Some of the events that we even remember today became quite brutal and deadly.  Those who fought in this war on both sides were deadly serious about the causes they represented and willing to fight and even die to see their cause succeed.  The war waged for years and steady progress was made but not without tremendous sacrifice by the leaders of the movement who were committed to a giving a new meaning to the phrase “set my people free.”

In all of black history, there may be no more significant a time since the Civil War when the rights of African Americans were so deeply fought and won.  The tensions in the country had been building.  When the Supreme Court mandated desegregation in the schools in the historic case Brown versus the Board of Education, the stage was set.  But it was on December 1, 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama to a white man that the movement finally took shape and became a titanic struggle for the rights of African Americans in America.  That first battle brought to the front line one of the most important figures to fight for Civil Rights of that era, the Reverend Martin Luther King.

This tremendous struggle for freedom was never easy and was often marked with violence.  Over the next ten years some of the most important milestone in black history took place including…

*        1957 – President Eisenhower had to send federal troops to Arkansas to secure admission to Central High School by nine black students.

*        1960 – The sit-in at Woolworths lunch counter in Greensboro North Carolina set the stage for nonviolent protest that was used with great success for the rest of the struggle.  Nonviolent protest and civil disobedience became a staple of the civil rights movement because of the influence of Martin Luther King.

*        1963 – The historic March on Washington in which over 200,000 people gathered to hear Dr. Kings famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

*        1964 – President Lyndon Johnson signed the bill that was the most significant event of his presidency and one he believed deeply in, the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

*        1965 – The assignation of Malcolm X and the Watts race rights.

*        1965 – President Johnson takes another bold step to accelerate the civil rights movement implementing Affirmative Action when he issues Executive Order 11246.

This short list is just a few of the highlights of this troubled time in which the rights of all citizens of American, black and white and of all colors were being redefined both on the streets, in the courts and in the different branches of government.  In the years to come there would be great steps forward.  One by one, every area of American life would see breakthroughs by African Americans in the areas of sports, entertainment, education and politics.  There were many proud moments and there were moments of tremendous shame and heinous acts committed by both white and black people.  But through all that struggle, the society continued to grow and adapt to the will of the people as has always been the tradition in American culture.

The struggle is far from over.  Discrimination and hate speech continue to be a problem to this day.  And while it is easy to reflect on those days of struggle with regret, we can also look at them with pride.  We can be proud of the great leaders who demonstrated tremendous courage and wisdom to lead this nation to a better way of life.  And we can be proud of America because it is here where such a struggle can result in equality and freedom for all citizens, not just a few.

Why some Protestants were so opposed to the Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s in Northern Ireland?

With the events of the Civil Rights movement having become a success and gaining more momentum with the passing of the Civil Rights Act in America 1963, Civil Rights movements started to crop up all around the world, as an example Northern Ireland. In Northern Ireland there was a divide between the two major communities, Protestants and Catholics. Tensions had been with the Catholics since the Break of Rome by Henry the 8th in 1509 and later the plantation policy started by James 6th of Scotland becoming King in England and letting Protestants settle in English conquered Ireland (Taken over by the English in the 1200’s) majorly in the North East of the island. Now in 1960 tensions started to rise to an all time high with Catholics starting a Civil Rights campaign which started peacefully but ended in a sectarian, guerrilla warfare mess. Catholics wanted a Civil Rights bill as compared to Protestants they suffered major discrimination in everything: the benefit system (Introduced in 1946 to help with the baby boom and post war United Kingdom, it was meant to bring equality rather then superiority and discrimination), jobs, housing, schooling and just general aspects of everyday life.

The first ignition point of the Civil Rights movements was seen to be started by Austin Currie in June 1968. He was a nationalist MP who decided to organise a sit in, at a newly build council house for 19 year old Emily Beattie. Him along with his supporters were trying to point at the discrimination Catholics and lower class Protestants suffered in the welfare state in Northern Ireland. The discrimination he was trying to point out was this women was given priory in the housing system because she was a secretary to a member of the Ulster Unionist Party  and had been given a house over desperate couples who had children. The RUC soon broke up the protest, but not before the television crews picked up the story and reported it highlighting the discrimination.

This next event was the last of its kind for the Civil Rights movement, a protest not involving violence. Currie contracted the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) which stood up for the discriminated people in Northern Ireland and wanted to see the end of superiority in Northern Ireland. Currie wanted to hold a protest to highlight vote rigging in Dungannon which had a 53% turnout of Catholics in the local election but it ended up with the Republications gaining 7 seats while the Unionists who had the lower turn out getting 14. The march went ahead on the 24th August with a 2500 people turnout marching from Coalisland to the edge of Dungannon, chanting and holding placards. The marchers had intended to march into the centre of Dungannon and stage a rally but were stopped by 400 police and the crowd dispersed without any trouble.

Then the start of violence against and with the protests started in October 1968, Londonderry. Two members of the Londonderry Housing Action Committee were on the previous march at Dungannon. They suggested one be held on the 5th October 1968 and informed the Media. The march was banned from entering the city centre by William Craig, Northern Irelands’ Home Affairs Minister. Under the Special Powers Act Craig could ban any march he wanted to. It is unknown why he wanted to ban the marches but it is believe he just held the view that it was just a Republication March calling for unity of Ireland, not a Civil Rights March which called for equality. With all the cameras on the stage the protesters were even more determined and ignored the ban and tried to get to the Diamond the main square in the centre of the city via the Craigavon Bridge. But on the bridge they were met by the RUC who stopped them with barricades and water cannons. The protesters soon got confused and tried to cross the RUC who prevented them.  This was all fine up until the RTE (republican broadcasting company) showed more. It showed Policy brutality of RUC officers beating citizens who were retreating and blasting innocent bystanders with water cannons giving off the impression that Northern Ireland was an oppressive and intolerant state.

As a reaction to this the current serving Northern Ireland Prime Minister, Terence O’Neil passed the anti-discrimination act. This act was meant to ban and make it illegal for discrimination to take place in Northern Ireland especially in the government controlled benefit system. The reforms where passed but the tension continued to mount and rise. Some unionists were unhappy that’s this reforms where happening too fast and others feared that the Civil Rights movement was an attempt at the joining of Northern Ireland and the Free State of Ireland (Now know as the Irish Republic) together. Also many working class Protestants resented the media giving off the impression that only Catholics were suffering when in fact many Protestants where on the poverty line or below it and needed help.

Within a few months of this act being passed O’Neil was forced to resign. In January 1969 militants within  the civil rights movement decided to keep the pressure on him by holding a march from Belfast to Londonderry. A mob of militant Loyalist ambushed the marches but the police did little to protect them and rioting in Londonderry followed. O’Neil called an election to make the most of his support he had among Catholics and Protestants. He won but by only a small majority the hardliners such as Right winged Unionist Ian Paisley where now critizing O’Neil left and right and more marches and violence followed. O’Neil resigned in April of 1969 and was replaced by James Chichester-Clark.

But before all of this happened was the formation of the Protestant paramilitary groups. On the 17th April, 1966 the Free state of Ireland celebrated the Easter Rising anniversary (Where Catholics declared an independent nation free of the Britain’s empire during world war one) Many leaders in the Free State gave speeches condemning the British for not giving up Northern Ireland and remerging the two. This lead to a fear by hard-line Protestant Unionist’s  that there was to be another rise of the IRA and started their own paramilitary groups (Most known is the UVF, Ulster Volunteer Tear force) Their actions started on the 7th Of May that year with a fire bombing on a Catholic owned pub which left one person dead and issued a statement: “From this day, we declare war against the Irish Republican Army and its splinter groups. Known IRA men will be executed mercilessly and without hesitation. Less extreme measures will be taken against anyone sheltering or helping them, but if they persist in giving them aid, then more extreme methods will be adopted . . . we solemnly warn the authorities to make no more speeches of appeasement. We are heavily armed Protestants dedicated to this cause”

In conclusion I think the Protestants where opposed to the Civil Rights movement in 1960’s due to fear. I believe there was a fear among protestants who where under the influence of propaganda by right winged unionist groups and where tricked into believing that the Civil Rights movement was an attempt to merge the two countries into a united Ireland again. There was also a major fear among Protestants of the uprising of the IRA again which led to paramilitary groups being formed with ended with assassination and destruction of property. I believe may Protestants in Ireland at this time had an air of superiority and didn’t think of the lower classes even if it was comprised of Protestants as well. They believed the current system of discrimination especially in politics and the benefit system was fare and the Civil Rights Movement was an attempt to make a united Ireland. I believe this fear lead to people being opposed. I believe this fear was mainly created by Right winged political groups and leaders ( an example would be Ian Paisley) and the Free State of Irelands actions and speeches during the Easter Rising.