Peaceful Resistance Thesis

In Palmer v. Thompson, 391 F.2d 324 (5th Cir. Miss. 1967), twelve Black American citizens living in Jackson, Mississippi, filed a suit on behalf of themselves and fellow Black American citizens seeking an injunction against the Mayor and Commissioners of Jackson, its Police Chief, and its Director of Recreation, alleging discriminatory conduct in the operation of the city’s swimming pools and jails. In 1963 the “City of Jackson closed all swimming pools which it owned and operated. From that time forward “no municipal swimming facilities were opened to any citizen of either race. And the city acknowledged that it did not intend to reopen or operate any of the swimming facilities on an integrated basis. The city contended that the racial integration of the pools would endanger personal safety of all citizens and would pose a problem for officials to maintain law and order.

Laws were passed that denied African-Americans their right to vote, excluded them from using public transportation, excluded them from playing sports or attending sporting events, and even prevented them from playing checkers with Whites. The decision divided American society in two which in turn hindered the struggle for equal rights by doing so. The Plessy v Ferguson decision set back racial relations, increased oppression rates within the many African-American communities, and subsequently authorized more than fifty years worth of “legal”

It is said in, “The Blood of Emmett Till” that between 1946 and 1953 in Chicago, if a black moved into an all-white neighborhood the “alarmed white residents would quickly sell their homes,” again treating the blacks as if they were some kind of disease, in fear of losing power. This isn’t even the worst thing they had done, the southern whites were so threatened by the blacks and so corrupted with power that they would form mobs and try to make people move out of their homes. Tyson tells us in, “The Blood of Emmett Till,” that on August 9th, 1953, a few days after Betty and Donald Howard moved into the all-white neighborhood of Trumbull Park Homes, “a mob of two thousand angry whites was throwing bricks and fire bombs...” at the Howard’s home trying to scare them into

Shelley v. Kraemer played a pivotal role in abolishing RRCs and opening urban housing to minorities. However, Shelley did very little to influence the patterns of segregation present in most neighborhoods. The idea that racial segregation or racial mixing did not change for people and influence the housing market for long after Shelley (Property Stories: Rose on Shelley v. Kraemer, pp. 218-219). “Legality helped to cement the idea that maintaining property values depended on segregated housing, and that was an idea that did not go away with Shelley.” (Quoted in Rose 56ArizLRevSyl11, pp. 15) Federal Housing Administration (FHA)

This act, inspired by the earlier ruling of Brown v. Board of Education, altered the structure of the American culture. This act loosened the chains that bounded the African Americans to the ghettos. This act, according to ocument 5, entitled all citizens to “full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation… without discrimination” (Document 5). This act also ruled that those who engage “in a pattern of practice of resistance to the full enjoyment of any rights secured by this title” are to be given “an application for a permanent of temporary injunction” or a “restraining order” (Document 5). The passage of this act marked the start of a monuental shift in American society.

Peaceful resistance to laws positively affect a free society. Throughout history, there have been multiple cases of both violent and peaceful protests. However, the peaceful protests are the ones that tend to stick with a society and are the ones that change the society for the better. In April 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a letter about just and unjust laws while he was in Birmingham jail for peacefully protesting. King came to Birmingham because "injustice is here".

Cesar Chavez, labor union organizer and civil rights leader, took the 10th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as an opportunity to remind people about the benefits of nonviolent resistance. Chavez published an article in the magazine of a religious organization devoted to helping those in need. In this article, Chavez shares his views on how nonviolent resistance is more effective than violent resistance. Chavez contracts the outcomes of violence versus nonviolence using an if then format in order to prove nonviolence superior.

“The most oppressive feature of black secondary education was that southern local and state governments, through maintaining and expanding the benefits of public secondary education for white children, refused to provide public high school facilities for black children.” In sum, Anderson uses this chapter to build a broader argument about the “separate, but equal doctrine” under Plessy v. Ferguson that mandated segregation. More specifically, he situates this argument through case studies in Lynchburg, VA and Little Rock, AR. In the culminating chapter, James Anderson discusses the emergence of historically black universities and black land-grant colleges.

Here, the Supreme Court ruled that the existence of “separate but equal” facilities was unconstitutional, for it violated the 14th amendment. This could not have occurred in the 19th century for the sheer fact that Plessy vs. Ferguson, the case that Brown overturned, was ruled on in 1896. America in the 19th century was not ready for this case, but the truth is, neither was 1950's America. Implementation of Supreme Court rulings rely on legitimacy, and it was clear that the South did not take Brown’s ruling seriously. After change was developing at a glacial pace, the Civil Rights Movement became a grassroots coalition.

There is a tendency to view the racial segregation in American housing as the result of several local, uncoordinated decisions made in the past. Typically, Americans are told that once African American families began moving into a neighborhood, their prejudiced white neighbors would panic and start fleeing. This in turn led to plummeting property values, tax revenues, and a cycle of deteriorating neighborhoods that were in sharp contrast to those occupied by white residents. All of this taken together has some truth, but it is masking a far more important factor. For most of the twentieth century, racially discriminatory policies of federal, state, and local governments dictated where white and black citizens should and could live.

The root of any discrimination is dehumanization, no large group of people can sincerely hate or cause pain to a group of people based off of race, color, sexuality, gender, religion or any other separating factor without dehumanizing them. Every single time in history where people in power have taken advantage of a specific group of people, they have had to dehumanize them. There is no debate about that. Harper Lee not only uses To Kill a Mockingbird as a direct protest against the Jim Crow Laws, but she also protests the reason people allowed themselves to sleep at night.

The relationship between the law and society affects everyone and everything. How the law is written and how it is acted upon in society are two different things. It is imperative, therefore, that we as citizens pay attention to and understand the importance of the relationship between the law and society as it affects both our own lives and the lives of those around us. We engage in and witness the power of the law and society everyday. The law is personal, however, the law is also discretionary depending on where you look.

Public Policy on Housing Discrimination Executive Summary Housing discrimination and segregation have long been present in the American society (Lamb and Wilk). The ideals of public housing and home buying have always been intertwined with the social and political transformation of America, especially in terms of segregation and inequality of capital and race (Wyly, Ponder and Nettking). Nevertheless, the recent unrest in Ferguson, Missouri and in Baltimore due to alleged police misconduct resulting to deaths of black men brought light on the impoverished conditions in urban counties in America (Lemons). This brings questions to the effectiveness of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in devising more fair-housing facilities (Jost).

The 1960’s was a critical decade for the civil rights movement filled with frustration and violence. As the movement fought for the equal rights of African Americans, the efforts of the movement had not resolved all the issues African Americans faced on a daily basis. African Americans faced housing discrimination where if they”tried to move into working class “white neighborhoods,” they were attacked and some had their homes burned”(112). Although racism was being fought through bills and acts, legal action was not going to halt all societal racism in the nation. Just because a black person could own a house, it did not mean they were socially welcome to own any house they could afford, they had restrictions to what was ‘their place’.

Peaceful Resistance no matter what way you look at it, it 's still going against someone whether it involves words or actions, resistance still causes more conflict. The last 5 years we have had people say they want change through these “peaceful protest” but these peaceful protests have done nothing but turn to violent riots were theirs damage to vehicles, business families rely on destroyed, bystanders hurt, officers killed and our country torn apart. Back when Martian Luther King Jr was around and he had his Peaceful Resistance or rallies for equality, they were peaceful and brought our country together with something that needed to be changed, but the protest we’ve had the last 5 years… he would be ashamed of. Peaceful Resistance to laws does negatively impact our free society in America. First going along with what I said about there being “peaceful rallies” even though some people may be at these rallies to make a difference to support their opinion, not everyone can respect that.