Ethical Dilma

When talking about the “master narrative” of the civil rights movement several things became very clear. The things that get taught about the civil rights movement were just the skim of skims about all the things that happened. What I was taught in school just like everyone else in the class was Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. were the two driving forces behind the cause. When there were tons of different mediating factors. In class, Brandon shared the “master narrative” of the civil rights movement is “One day, a nice old lady, Rosa Parks, sat down on a bus and got arrested. The next day, Martin Luther King Jr. stood up, and the Montgomery bus boycott followed. And sometime later, King delivered his famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, and segregation was over.”

Coming to grips that my knowledge of such a large part of American history might be skewed or not as deep as I might like is eye-opening. The ways we find meaning in something are very different, some people find meaning in the resolution and accomplishment that comes with following through with goals. An example would be a person learning about the Brown v. Board lawsuit and maybe not finding it meaningful because it was just some court case that desegregated schools simple as that. But if that person was taught just the “master narrative” of Brown v. Board to desegregate schools in America they wouldn’t know about all other things that were going on like the Boston Anti-busing rallies, the harassment that black students faced even before they got to the school. Like the little rock nine needing to have national guard and the U.S Army protection while they were in school. Things like this might help people find even deeper meaningfulness in these histories. Learning about all these small seemingly insignificant separate incidences that came during the most tumultuous period of American history might help people come to terms with the ethical issues we still face today.