Their Internal Principles And Beliefs example essay topic

"Our problem today is that we have allowed the internal to become lost in the external" -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Today's world is based on appearance, and most often the goal is not as important as the means by which it is achieved. Why is this such a "problem"? Time after time, people come to find that they have wasted their lives working towards a goal which, in the end, was never worth all that work to begin with, or they realize that they could have gone about their actions differently.

The people of modern America are all about living live for the moment, taking risks, not making sacrifices, and never yielding to "the long run". Looking at the world of 2002, one can witness the apex of human civilization. Who can question the customs, morals, and nature of today's Americans, without arguing wit results? Consider the Civil Rights Movement (1954-1991). The integration of the two races would have gone a lot easier and faster if both sides discarded their internal principles and beliefs and did their best to make the other side happy, thus creating an equal society.

Until Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, certain literacy tests restricted black voting. This was a decent attempt to meet black demands, but the act only opened voting rights to uneducated people (black and white) and put more control in their hands, which was a mistake. That now leaves the question, "why were there so many more illiterate blacks than whites"? The segregation of schools is not a valid response. It does not matter what school teaches it, the English language is the same.

In September of 1957, at Little Rock High School, crowds of people against the integration of public schools, prevented nine black students from entering the school. What a waste of time that was. Instead of getting so worked up about who goes to what school, people should have stepped down and kept their opinions, and oppositions inside. This is an example of why "bottling up" emotions is a good thing. It is not necessarily one's appearance that make others not like him, but the things he says and does.

Because of this, it is very hard to believe that white people oppressed blacks solely because of skin color. Oppression is wrong no matter what, but certain actions, and the way they were executed, which blacks took to eliminate segregation may have instead fueled hatred from whites. Sit-ins and bus boycotts are all forms of protest and rebellion, no matter how nonviolent they are. The Rosa Parks bus incident in 1955 isa great example of how two sides can escalate conflict.

On one hand Rosa Parks refused to be polite and give up her seat, and started a nationwide boycott against public transportation. On the other hand, some white guy has nothing better to do that complain that he can not sit at the front of the bus. The only thing harder than integrating two races is integrating two races when one side is opposed. Due to, once again internal principles and beliefs (as earlier discussed in this paper), many white people were oppose to desegregation. What's worse is that those principles and beliefs where never justified. In some instances, such internal stimuli led to acts of violence, and even murder.

June 12, 1963: an NAACP field secretary is murdered outside his home. September 15, 1963: four girls attending Sunday school are killed by a bomb at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Two more black children are killed in riots of the aftermath. March 7, 1965: blacks marching to Montgomery in support of voting right are stopped by a police blockade at the PettusBridge. Fifty are hospitalized as a result of police brutality.

April 4, 1968: Reverend King is shot and killed at the age of 39. Although some points discussed in this paper may not agree with the ideas of free speech and self expression, experience has taught us that it really is better when most emotions, thoughts, and opinions are kept to oneself. The ability to conform to a society's standards is hard, especially when those standards need change, and some not yet having been established.