In January 1957, a bus boycott under the slogan "Azikwelwa" (or "We shall not ride") was initiated by the people of Alexandra Township near Johannesburg to prevent the imposition of increased transportation costs. In the period 1950 - 1980, many such boycotts took place and the whole transport boycott movement is often linked to Apartheid resistance. Some have also identified it as a consumer and a political protest in a period when South African capitalism was entering in a phase of economic recession. For many, it was a demonstration of working-class solidarity which began with civil disobedience but evolved into a process of creation of a collective consciousness. Hence, the massive boycotts are said to have helped in the formation of …show more content…
James Matthews's writing career is not only limited to the writing of prose and poetry. He was also a journalist and a publisher. Hence, his short story seems to feed on a mixture of everyday reality and popular opinion about the mass protests that took place in South Africa during the second half of the 20th century. If we look at reports and newspaper articles from the period1, it becomes clear that Matthews's short story is not "fiction" properly speaking. In "Azikwelwa", the manipulation of real events and the use of the bus boycotts's slogan for title give a very particular realistic twist to the whole text. The role the potagonist is to play in this pseudo-journalistic narrative does complicate the situation. He seems to be, at first, a detached observer of events with which he is not concerned. He notices that "there were the police and the cars standing in rows and the people inside pulled out [...] the owners protested [...] There were many who slipped down side streets," etc. Further on, however, the narrative changes and a short glimpse of Jonathan's mind reveals the shift in his role ("Always, he was with those who suffered without protest. Always, he was with those without voice [...]"). His progressive involvement and participation in the protest shortcircuit the initial distance between him and what he observes. The impression of reading
When the word “protest” is brought up, everyone gets stereotypical and assumes it is violently, especially when one is protesting war . Some people protest through writing. These writers protest using different literary devices, such as imagery, irony, and structure. War has unique touch to everyone’s life who encounters this. Each individual deals with the effects of war in different ways. The authors Stephen Crane, Wilfred Owen, Tim O’Brien, and Kevin Powers express their feelings by writing.
Through the Baobabs in The Little Prince, we can also better understand the idea of gangrene v. amputation in James Baldwin’s “Notes of a Native Son.” In this piece, Baldwin focuses on his father and how his hate for racism and white people causes him to be mean, distant, and paranoid, eventually resulting in his death. The idea of gangrene v. amputation is introduced by Baldwin as the ways in which one can handle interracial relationships between blacks and whites. According to Baldwin, “Amputation is swift but time may prove that the amputation was not necessary. . . . Gangrene is slow, but it impossible to be sure that one is reading one’s symptoms right” (Baldwin 113). Thus, one can either continue to have these interracial relations
In this speech, the narrator gives an emotional message about dispossession. Not only does he discuss dispossession, but he also talks about the crowd following the law and needing to organize a leader. It was brought up due to a couple being evicted out of their apartment. This speech was a success because his words had a powerful effect on the audience and caused them to become angry. In addition, the narrator got the crowd to do what he wanted them to which was take back the belongings of the couple being evicted back into their apartment. In order for a speech to be effective, it must have a large impact on the people listening. He used an emotional appeal that made this speech the most effective and allowed for the crowd to actually listen. When ranting about the couple to the audience, the narrator states, “Should two old folks live in such junk, cooped up in a filthy room? It’s a great danger, a fire hazard! Old cracked dishes and broken-down chairs. Yes, yes, yes! Look at that old woman, somebody’s mother, somebody’s grandmother, maybe” (277). He is appealing to the crowd’s emotions in order for them to feel bad for the couple and have a strong feeling of displeasure at the occurrence. The narrator succeeded in doing so because the people were outraged and returned the couple’s belongings back into her home. The narrator says, “Look at them, not a shack to pray in or an alley to sing the blues! They’re facing a gun and we’re facing it with them. They don’t want the world, but only Jesus” (279). Furthermore, he used an emotional appeal to rile up the crowd. It was an effective speech for that reason. The narrator’s words were able to have an influence on the audience. Also, the eviction speech was a success because Brother Jack was very pleased with it and invited the narrator to join the Brotherhood. Evidently, it has been expressed that the eviction speech was most effective
The protests full effect was achieved through the feet and resiliency of the travelers that organized carpools and walked long miles to work. Even with threats of violence and job loss, African Americans, many of which were poor, effectively crippled a bus system that received over 60 percent of its revenue from the African American community- they were resilient.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was successful because the protesters used nonviolence, the community helped each other, and the car pool was a major step in outcome. First of all, on March 22, 1956, Martin Luther King Jr. gives a speech and he states, “Democracy gives us this right to protest and that is all we are doing. We can say honestly that we have not advocated violence, have not practiced it, and have gone courageously on with a Christian movement”. This statement exemplifies that the protesters have done nothing wrong and they don’t plan on using violence. To continue, in a letter by Virginia Foster Durr written on January 30, 1956, she writes,“I think it is the first time that a whole Negro community has ever stuck together this way and
The montgomery Bus boycott is a major milestone in civil rights history because it was a civil rights movement international resistance for radical segregation and helped changed the view of disorderly conduct toward African American people in America In document # 6 Malcolm X says “ The Black man should take control of the politics of his own community and control the politicians who are in his own community”. This situation was successful because African American men did start to take control of things like the Civil Rights revolution. Although it wasn’t enough it was still there for
Rosa Parks didn’t want to give up her seat on the bus to a white man (Doc 2). The resistance method was shown by Rosa Parks. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, and which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama protested segregated seating. The iconic March on Washington in August 1963 was they protesting method. Two goals of this March words to in the segregation rules and public schools and to have voting rights for everyone (Doc 3).
of the 1960s, a collection of peaceful protests and boycotting of public transportation systems to
Throughout the 1950s and the 1960s, civil rights activists started protesting for change. In the US and Australia there were many significant protests undertaken by different groups of brave individuals all to invoke change. Some of the most influential protests were the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the American and Australian Freedom Rides. These protests mainly used the tactic of non-violent protests however, they also used boycotts and demonstrations. These protests brought great change to the way that the African Americans were treated in the US and the Indigenous people in Australia, because it forced the public to acknowledge the hardships that they had to face from segregation.
Rosa Parks once said, “Racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and, hopefully, we shall overcome.” Rosa Parks was an African- American women in Montgomery, Alabama, who believed in civil rights for African-Americans. It was a time of segregation, the separation of blacks and whites. For instance, blacks were required to sit in the back of the bus, and white people sat in the front of the bus.
The point of opinion is Gandhi because he is telling the governor what his tactics of civil disobedience are: Gandhi and the public are going to disregard the Salt Laws and trudge to the sea to create their own salt. The manner of this letter is very calm and peaceful. Document B is a passage from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s autobiography along with a photograph of a 1963 sit-in of integration supporters at a lunch counter. The main idea of this picture is that Martin Luther King Jr. is proud because he knows that what he is standing up for is right. This is a good example of non-violence and civil disobedience because the lunch counter was for white people only, and the integration supporters did not fight back at all to the people who may have been flinging junk at them, pouring stuff on them, tormenting them, or spitting at them. Finally, Document C is an excerpt from Nelson Mandela’s book, Long Walk to Freedom, and he is anticipating which tactic to use in order to accomplish liberation. After thinking over the situation, he noticeably chooses the non-violent method, which was the right
To begin this movement, after the arrest of claudette colvin they began a boycott in which they asked all African-American citizens to stay off the buses. In the text it exclaims “we therefore are asking every negro to stay off of the buses Monday in protest of the arrest and trial. Don’t ride the buses to work, to town, to school, or anywhere on Monday.”This meant that the NAACP felt angry about the equality and treatment that they were given on buses, and if they stayed off the buses the company that managed the buses would lose a lot of money, because the majority of the riders were African-American.And a loss of money for a company like that could be devastating. Also many people were happy that a young person stood up against certain laws that man are or were afraid of, because they would either get arrested or even killed, in the text (Pg. 39) it says “The wonderful thing which you have just done makes me feel like a craven coward.How encouageing it would be if more adults had you courage, self-respect and integrity.” This was told to her by a man in Sacramento,CA, meaning that the U.S lacked people who stood up against racism and other problems in the nation, and also it means that it should ashame adults because it took young person to make a change in society.Claudette colvin fought to the end to make a change in
Although pathos takes the background in this piece, it is due to the disconnect between the church leaders and the black experience. King does not attempt to describe how racism feels because the white men have no idea, or sympathy, towards the people. King knows his audience, and discerns that this type of argument would not be effective. Instead, he uses facts and situations to create an emotional bridge between him and his audience. MLK draws on his own experience when he has “seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim…” (4). The explicit situations of brutality strike a nerve with even the hardest audience, and the emotion proves that the violence is not an overreaction. Another way King uses pathos is through likening his work as well as the injustice of laws to other prominent groups to make the reader predetermined into thinking a certain way about the subject. To discredit the claim that his protests are illegal, he juxtaposes the situation through a forensic argument that “everything Hitler did in Germany was ‘legal’ and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was
One of them was the turning point on December 1, 1955, when Rosa Parks (a seamstress) refuse to give her seat to a white man for this action; she was arrested and sent to jail for violating the Alabama laws. (Source: Police Department Report.) Tired of this, all the African Americans community united together and organized a boycott to the bus system. They did not use the buses for almost thirteen months, during this time all of them walk or carpool to their destinations (Source: Rustin’s Diary.) The boycott was a great success; it was intended to respect African Americans' rights and stop the whites from violating them. This action was just the beginning of the Civil rights Movement. After this event, non-violent protests started making, Martin Luther King Jr. head leader in the movement stand up to stop segregation. Hindrance and support for equality were both on the rise throughout boycotts and
The evolution of the strike causes an evolution in the self-perceptions of the Africans themselves, one that is most noticeable in the women of Bamako, Thies, and Dakar. These women go from seemingly standing behind the men in their lives, to walking alongside them and eventually marching ahead of them. When the men are able to work the jobs that the train factory provides them, the women are responsible for running the markets, preparing the food, and rearing the children. But the onset of the strike gives the role of bread-winner-or perhaps more precisely bread scavenger-to the women. Women go from supporting the strike to participating in the strike. Eventually it is the women that march on foot, over four days from Thies to Dakar.