When I found someone leading a petition to repeal Amendment one, this was the person’s argument and I am in full agreement. Here is what it says:

“There are numerous reasons why it is important to repeal Amendment 1 (which states that ‘Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State’ of NC):

1) Because civil unions between one man and one woman will benefit NC

2) Because the legal implications of this amendment can negatively impact health benefits, domestic violence cases, and the overall economic well being of NC

3) Because it stands in contradiction to the 14th amendment of the constitution “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

4) Because equality cannot be given – it must be earned. Numerous laws have been overthrown, and the sense of community that was created in overturning those unfair laws was profound (enough to start countries and expand nations). Our only hope is that repealing Amendment 1 will be the first stepping stone on the path to a new era in the US, much in the same way that the Jim Crow laws being overturned paved the way for Martin Luther King and Barack Obama

5) Because if twitter can start a revolution in Egypt, there is no reason we cannot spark a revolution HERE and NOW.”

End Quote.

The link to the petition:

http://www.change.org/petitions/1-million-against-amendment-1

If you are a true American, you will sign this petition and help lead the way for a better tomorrow. And again the reason that this was even passed is beyond me considering religion has no place in politics. According to a our first right in the bill of rights is the following:

1. Freedom of Speech, Press, Religion, and Petition

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

This type of vote that I believe was solely based on religion has no place in the American government! I can careless if you are part of a religion but as America is a melting pot of all cultures and religions (Or at least it’s supposed to be…) I can say that I truly believe in separation of church and state!

The Civil Rights Movement could be consider very conservative due to the fact that its main organizations, the NAACP and the SCLC had conservative ideologies and strong Christians religious convictions.  Also, they believed in helping people at a grassroots level through local charity and they believed that the churches in neighborhoods should be a strong source of charity for the citizens around it.  The idea that charity for the poor should come from private business and local churches is a very conservative one.  If the Civil rights movement was be to made more liberal, there could have been more efforts to create legislation to help the poor, instead of focusing on developing local charitable organization privately.  Also the religion conviction could have been dropped, as it leads to a conservative tone in most of their speeches and articles.  If the movement were to be made more radical, it could have embraces more fully the concepts of the Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam.  The Black Panthers had very militant rhetoric and had a political backing based from Black Nationalism and Marxism.  The Civil rights movement as a whole was very conservative in the ways that it sought progress for its members, but it had very liberal and radical element within it naturally that are often either overlooked or downplayed.  If these  liberal sectors of the movement had been utilized more the entire Civil Rights Movement would have a completely different outlook and likely not have the kind of public support that it did have.

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.