Personal Narrative: The Civil Rights Movement

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My class had the opportunity to go on an Atlanta trip earlier in May and we got to visit the Civil Rights museum. There was three floors and each one made me more and more passionate about something I did not even know I was interested in. This trip was truly an eye-opening experience and one that I will not forget. A Gandhi quote that caught my eye was "Freedom is never dear at any price. It is the breath of life. What would not pay for living?” This quote could not have been any clearer than in the civil rights movement. People participated in peaceful protests and spoke out knowing possibly that they would die. Our tour guide told us many stories about the civil rights movement, and at the end, she said: “We are not defined as slaves our …show more content…
I knew that Martin Luther stood up for equal rights but going through the museum I got to see in depth just how much he had to sacrifice. He was first a pastor who along with 60 other ministers founded the Southern Christian leadership conference to help organize black churches. Somebody he considered as his mentor was Gandhi because of how peaceful Gandhi was towards his oppressors, he practiced non-violent activism. Martin led many peaceful marches. One example was the Montgomery bus protest where blacks had refused to ride on the bus which lasted over a year. A group that opposed racial integration bombed his house, but on June the federal courts decided that segregated seating was unconstitutional. After years of giving his life, living under constant threat and going to prison he gave his last speech “I've been to the Mountaintop”. While standing on his balcony a sniper had killed him. I saw the picture of the hotel owner had to come and shovel the blood off from the …show more content…
In the museum, I got to read about the sit-down movement. Where a group of black college student sat in a racially segregated lunch table. These four students had to endure physical and verbal abuse and Martin Luther encouraged this nonviolent protest. This museum had set up four seats where we sat with headphones and listened to what they felt. I sat in the seat with my hands spread out on the counter with the headphones o. I wasn't prepared for what I was about to hear. There was a man with a deep ferocious voice yelling, “Get up!” I felt his breath tickle my neck which made my hair prickle up. The guy then proceeded to kick the chair along with four other guys. Then there was a crash of a glass bottle and all these African men did was say nothing. They just sat there and took all the hits. There was another story about a fourteen-year-old kid who hit on a white girl and later that night these white men came, took the kid from his bed and beat him profusely and proceeded to shoot him. This went to court but since no one showed up the case was dropped. Another story was about this man who just got back from a rally he saw a black man and shot him front of a large crowd of people and this did go to court but no one wanted to admit that a white man killed a black man so this case also got dropped. I could go on and on. What really struck me the most was
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