Bottom-Up Analysis

In the essay “Let Justice Roll down”, Martin Luther King Jr wrote about the difficulties and social injustices faced by the negro population in America during the 1960’s. The main theme Dr. King was writing about in his yearly essay was the fight for civil justice and equality for all men and women. The essay chosen was written in 1965 and made very good points to the argument for equality made by Martin Luther King Jr. Three of these points included in the following paragraphs are the importance of Selma, AL to the rights movement, the importance of demonstrations, and a stronger focus on the Civil Rights Act.

The Civil Rights Movement symbolized the challenge and opposition to the racial injustices and segregation that had been engrained in American society for hundreds of years. Events that took place in the 1950s and 1960s, such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the March on Washington, sit-ins, speeches and numerous protests define this momentous time in United States history. Speeches during this period served as a means to inspire and assemble a specific group of people, for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X it was the black community that needed to rise up in hopes of achieving equal rights and voting rights for the blacks.

His courageous actions, that tragically resulted in his death, inspired and strengthened the Civil Rights Movement. Jones claims in his article titled "Who Mourns for Jimmie Lee Jackson?", "Had it not been for the murder of Jimmie Lee, it is probable that “Bloody Sunday” would not have occurred"(Jones). His murder was the straw that broke the camels back, it pushed activists over the edge and this is clearly portrayed in the film Selma. The portrayal of Jimmie Lee Jackson in the film Selma is very true too life; the only exaggeration is his death however, it was changed to further move the audience to feel as the characters are feeling in that

If you asked the average American about the Civil Rights movement, you would definitely hear about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. If you talked to someone with a better memory of history class they may tell you about Malcolm X. The movie Selma released on Christmas day of 2014 covers the Civil Rights movement and is praised for being a compelling movie and a historically accurate one. Selma is a historically accurate movie because it brought in other civil rights leaders, the facts that it got wrong were deliberately purpose, and it showed his relationship with Lyndon B Johnson.

“Our lives are not fully lived if we're not willing to die for those we love, for what we believe.” This quote was said by Martin Luther King Jr during the film Selma, and epitomizes his determination presented in the film. Selma, produced in 2014 and directed by Ava DuVernay is an extraordinary film. This film tells about King and supporters determination to obtain equal voting rights for African Americans in Alabama during 1965. Africans were still suffering from segregation and lack of equal rights. King, played by David Oyelowo, and his driven supporters desire to make a change, which leads to the historical events captured in this film. The filmmakers and actors did a wonderful job, allowing viewers to see and understand what took

Shortly before Martin Luther King was shot, he gave a powerful speech on civil rights. Martin Luther King’s last speech, ‘I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”, was given during the Memphis sanitation strike in which almost 1000 black workers were on strike for not being treated fairly. On April 3rd, 1968, MLK gave his final speech during the times of nonviolent civil rights protest, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” is remembered by people as MLK asking the black population to go out in the streets with him and non violently protest for what they deserve. In his speech, Martin Luther King effectively uses many allusions, repetition, and metaphors to indicate his key point of calling the African American community to action; as he told them

The movie Selma had a different vision of who Martin Luther King was. He was not just seen as a hero, but also a human being who faced issues at home. He was seen as a perfect man in the public eye, but perfectly imperfect to loved ones such as his wife, Coretta. The film “contrasts the moral triumph of King’s crusade for civil rights with the agony of his marital infidelities.” (Bradshaw, 2015) Selma was effectively the last battle of the American civil war, the final confrontation erupting decades after the South surrendered. (Bradshaw, 2015)

Jr. writes, “As pure as the ends we seek” (King #3). Furthermore, he says, “There is no greater treason than to do the right deed for the wrong person” (King #3). Martin Luther King is trying to say that the biggest betrayal of wrongdoing is when you do something that is right, but you do it for the wrong reason and it goes to waste. He doesn’t want this to happen in the Civil Rights Movement and he wants people to protest for the right reasons. One of his metaphors is, “They will be the James Merediths, courageously and majestic” (King #4). Also, “They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy-two-year-old woman of Montgomery, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride the segregated buses” (Kind #4). MLK wished that the people, who stood up what is right by doing something wrong, would be honored for their courage and bravery. His use of metaphors and similes really helped express what was right and what was

The brutality from this event can be summarized by one marcher who was reported saying, “My God, we’re being killed.” This malevolent act sent the entire nation in an uproar, sparking riots in major US cites and even in Toronto. The protests and riots gained so much popular support as to gain the attention of President Lyndon B. Johnson, who declared that he “deplored the brutality.” King was also determined to march from Selma to Montgomery in order to present the governor with the proposal for voting rights and to continue fighting the oppression (“Central Point” 24).

This time period was almost solely based on segregation as whites felt superior to blacks and didn’t want them to have the same rights as whites. Many if not all of the movements were based on prejudice. Prejudice is the thought and feeling of another group based on ethnicity and or race, usually these thoughts are negative. I would imagine some of the people involved considered this to be pluralism as there was the white group and the black group that were distinctly separated. One of the most important and first thought of civil rights movement events is the “I Have a Dream Speech” by Dr. Martin Luther King. This movement was started long before his speech was given and was sourced by many smaller movements. In the mid 1950s, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat at the front of the “colored section” of the bus to a white passenger, which was in defiance of the southern custom at the time. Ms. Parks was arrested in Montgomery, AL. for her defiance of the custom. This spawned a bus boycott, in which the black community refused to ride the busses for over a year, until the bus system was desegregated late in the year of 1956. Dr. Martin Luther King led the bus boycott as he was the newly elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). Also around this time Dr. King and several other individuals established the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) which was a major organizer for nonviolent civil rights

The public has labeled Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in many different ways over the years: a minister, a dreamer, and a leader. In Birmingham, April 1963, he could have been said to be a law-breaking extremist by many of the community’s members. Dr. King previously, before being thrown in jail, was the leader of the non-violent protests happening in the Birmingham area. A group of clergymen scorned his actions and those of his followers in a local newspaper. His rebuttal was not hateful, but rather insightful to the reasonings behind his actions and why they were necessary. Dr. King uses religious allusions and references which helps deliver this message and makes it so it is easily comprehensible. He has to put on a large aura of knowledge and

Extreme injustice, such as the events depicted in Selma, is, at its core, a relatively easy target for emotional manipulation. However, Selma did not take the traditional

The movie, "Selma," was an accurate picture of events that occurred in 1965. It followed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as he fought against the government in their chase to reject the “Black Americans” of their American rights. People knew that after blacks were still being denied their right to vote, still being discriminated from public places, and still being abused by white officers for no reason, and them not being annoyed for

One of Dr. King's most influential devices is his pristine use of repetition in order to drill his points across and reel the audience in. He goes on by describing the poor conditions faced by African Americans due to segregation that is ultimately at the fault of the government. Also showing how their African brothers are being taken away to fight for a country that does not see them as equals. His use of repetition is seen in statements such as: “...their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die…” and, “For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence….” Dr. King intends to stress the idea of this injustice in order to rally the people against the lack of civil rights by humanizing the countless African Americans who had died fighting for a nation that will not fight for them.

It is impossible to understand the Civil Rights movement without properly separating fact from popular belief. Many of the images that are part of our collective memory as Americans are of Dr. Martin Luther King have delivered his 'I have a dream' speech, or of Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on the bus. The civil rights movement was an intense war and a fierce revolution filled with violence and many deaths in which Blacks rose up and fight for their freedom. Consequently, many history students tend to fall into the trap of seeing the civil rights movement from the top down, mainly focused on the leadership of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, instead of the bottom up, while disregarding the millions of people who labored in the