Exploration 7

After watching the film, I came to a conclusion that many things could be learned from watching this film.  I really admired how MLK's was a non-violent movement. I think every one can take a very important lesson from this, how fighting fire with fire never works, and it is best to handle things in a non-violent way.  Even though the people part of MLK's movement were beaten and terrorized by the police and other groups against them, they never retaliated with violence and that is really admirable about them.

What caught my eye the most during the film was the brutality towards the protesters, and how the police did nothing about it, or contributed to it.  This really shocked me even though I knew this kind of thing happened back then before I watched the film.  In my opinion, what really made this movement work was the leadership of MLK and the use of non
-violence.  If the movement had responded with violence, I think it would have just completely gone against their favor because the media would have made it looked like they were the antagonists of the situation, therefore turning more people against them. A quote I liked from the film was "Alabama needs to face the fact that we are determined to be free"  I really like this quote because it shows how the movement  was not going to stop until they got their freedom, it showed their determination to get their freedom and I thought that was very admirable.

The person I researched was Jim Lawson.  Jim is a American activist, and a university professor.  He was a leading theoretician and tactician of non-violence during the civil rights movement era.  During the 1960's, he served as a mentor to the Nashville Student Movement and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.  He continues to train activists in non-violence.