Black Lives Matter: The Civil Rights Movement

In the United States, there has been many cases of Racial injustice. From the beginning of the start of the United States of America it was the injustice to the Native Americans being captured and used for slave labor while their bison be slaughtered for sportsmanship. But this paper is on the specific race of the African Americans. There are many races that have been racially profiled and ostracized by the English people. But the treatment that African Americans have endured even till this day is disheartening. African Americans have gone through enslavement during the early 1600’s to the mid 1800’s. Then the African Americans were obstructed by the Jim Crow laws creating the ‘Separate but Equal” propaganda during the late 1800’s into the 1960’s. After the abolishment of the Jim Crow Laws, people were considered equal until the recent actions of many police officers using deadly force on African American youths in the early 2000’s.

In Ferguson, Missouri there was a shooting that resulted in law enforcement siding the oppressor rather than the 18-year old whose life was taken in the incident. Michael Brown’s killer never faced consequences for his actions, which resulted in a protest that practiced civil disobedience, but resulted in violence by the people destroying the community of Ferguson.  Many protesters used this event as a chance to speak up because they were always silenced. These people couldn’t understand the consequences of their actions. Many feared saying anything that the individual had witnessed because signs

During the past couple months a controversial case was brought to the grand jury in Ferguson. The jury decided to not indict Officer Darren Wilson, who shot Michael Brown. This major decision caused uprising, riots, protests, and lootings in the town of Ferguson. Many protesters feel this is a race issue, when clearly it is not. The grand jury did the right thing to not indict Officer Darren Wilson in the killing of Michael Brown. Michael Brown was guilty because he assaulted a police officer, the actions Michael Brown took apart in, and

There has been a great uproar between Americans protesting against police brutality. Many Americans, black and white believe we should protest against them and then there are others who believe we should not. The majority of Americans who protest against them are blacks. They believe police are only here to harm everyone, but I believe differently. I believe we should stop protesting against police brutality because it is causing to many riots in cities. Police officers shouldn’t all be categorized as a bunch of brutal men and women trying to cause harm to everyone. If anyone is brutal it’s the protesters.

The people of Ferguson were outraged at the racial injustice which transpired in their city. Too many young black men had had their lives taken too soon by the police. Michael Brown’s death was another added to the list surely not the last and the people knew this. Change was needed and that burning need for it is what started the riots. The citizens of Ferguson were fed up with how the people of the country were treated by law enforcement and decided to make a stand. Ferguson would be thrown in the spotlight for “what’s wrong with America”. The police and the people of the country had a broken bond. Those entrusted to protect the people were no longer trusted.

In August 2015, Ferguson was experienced an insurgent uprising. There were already previous victims of police brutality that have been affected, but the life of Michael Brown being taken away caused people to completely snap. The fact that racial injustice, the rejection of freedom of speech, and disrespecting American citizens was part of the killing of the teen made people create a full on riot protesting the transgression hoping to make it all end and to prevent any more lives from being taken all because of policemen changing the meaning of their job to something not even close to serving its purpose.

Over the last few year there have been many cases involving the death of a young African Americans being killed in ways that fellow black people would describe as vicious unreasonable manslaughter. The case involving Michael Brown occurred on August 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri. Brown was eighteen years old, and was shot to death by Darren Wilson, a white Ferguson police officer. (Bucanan par. 1) After the trial, Wilson was set free as the jury saw him as innocent for his actions. Due to this, and other cases where white police officers were let go after fatally shooting a black man, riots began to arise in different cities. (Bucanan par. 5) The most note-able of these riots would be the Ferguson riots where stores were looted and destroyed and police militarization was required to help settle the protests. (BBC News) The whole reason of the occurrence of these riots is because the black community feels the injustice of law enforcement and that the police force abuse the power bestowed upon them behind the badge on their chest. More specifically there is the issue of racism among the men and some women in the police force. And this is what people of other ethnic background leads to believe is the reason behind the unnecessary manslaughter and police brutality on black people. Like all debates there are always two sides to perspective. For the black community, the main point of view is that policemen are being overly and unnecessarily brutal with their arrests. And men

On September 20th, 2016 in Charlotte, North Carolina, Keith Lamont Scott was fatally shot by police. Not an hour after he was shot, the story of the shooting spread like wildfire across the media and even though no investigation had occurred, the public came to a consensus that Keith Scott was killed due to him being African American. This consensus came from a livestreamed video by Scott’s wife in which she claims he was unarmed, followed police orders, and was simply reading a book. This belief led to three days of rioting which caused injury to over twenty police officers, nine civilians, and according to a Charlotte observer article written by Steve Harrison, the riots caused 4.6 million dollars in damages to the city. All this was done as a form of protest against “racism”. The truth came out after the investigation and trial that

This particular incident caused very intense riots against the police all over the city of Ferguson. There were shootings, vandalism, and massive destruction. The event happened in Ferguson, Missouri back in August 2014. Publisher Brent Wilkes says, “minority communities were left wondering how to work with a criminal justice system that continues to protect its officers over the welfare of citizens.” (1) Since the death of Micheal Brown, a large amount of people, nationwide, began to ask who they could trust. Police are supposed to be there to help you and protect you when needed, but the fact that they were killing innocent people was very

On August 9, 2014 Mike Brown, an 18-year-old African American was shot and killed a by Officer Darren Wilson of the Ferguson Police Department. Mr. Brown was unarmed when he was shot and killed. The officer shots were fired when Brown allegedly reached for a gun out of the officer’s vehicle. Brown proceeded to walk towards the officer with his hands up and was killed in the act of self-defense. The officer was found not guilty, and the city reacted in a way that was positive and very much so negative. They protested and looted areas. They set buildings on fire as well as cars, and vandalized many stores of the Ferguson Community. Some felt the news, well certain news stations and or publications didn’t print the views from both sides. They

According to The Federal News Dispatch, “Fresh protests were held across the United States as anger persisted over a grand jury 's decision not to charge a white police officer in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager (Lanham).” The tension between police system and black communities in the United States has been increasing since past few years. After the death of Michele Brown, policing in America has been criticized by all levels of people. Looking at the Ferguson incident, intervention is necessary for the peaceful land of this racial conflict between police and African-American community.

However, Ferguson’s important political leaders such as the mayor and their police force are 97% white. In a city that should have more African-American’s being in power since their race is more popular, it is not. This shows the stigma towards black people and how they are treated inferior to white people because people believe they cannot take care of a city. Additionally, according to city-data, Ferguson has a higher crime rate than the United States average. Since Ferguson has many black people, this makes others believe that African-Americans are the main cause for murder, rape, and other crimes that occur in America. This shows the stereotypes that occur in the world for black people. Michael Brown’s incident caused a riot in Ferguson resulting in night curfews. However, the police force only went further with their insensitivity by using tear gas, dogs, rubber bullets and other weapons to stop the protest. The reason to Michael Brown’s death was stereotyping him to believe he was the one that stole the items because of his skin colour. Darren Wilson fired a total of 12 bullets and articles have said that he kept shooting because Brown was coming towards him.

The Black Lives Matter movement has swept across America. It 's branched out with chapters in over 31 cities and held rallies and boycotts across the United States(Sidner). The Black Lives Matter movement started with the outrage of the death of a young man. It continues to take over headlines and raise awareness on police brutality and inequality. However, the movement has met resistance from the All Lives Matter group. This group thinks that Black Lives Matter is a movement to express hatred towards other races. However, statistics, the views of fellow citizens, and the overall purpose of the Black Lives Matter movement, can prove that the movement wasn 't meant to express hate on other races and that we need to support the movement instead of going against it.

Nonviolent protests started to form on August 10; however, it did not take long for the protests to take a turn for the worst. Citizens of Ferguson began to vandalize and loot businesses, smash vehicle windows, and even set buildings on fire. As the riots continued to amplify, so did the police’s forcefulness. “Officers covered in head-to-toe body armor and sporting weapons of terrifying

The Ferguson riots were a product of a long period of discrimination towards and mistreatment of the black community in Ferguson and were ignited by the murder of a young black man named Michael Brown. Michael was shot and killed by a police officer who believed that the young man was a danger to his life. This is one of many of these killings that seem to be centered on racial profiling done by police officers, and fueled by the societal perception that black people (men, in particular) are inherently dangerous and usually armed. There has been case after case of police officers shooting innocent black men and women simply because the officers get scared and overreact. Police brutality towards people of color is something that desperately needs to be addressed so that we can prevent the continued loss of precious life.