March Response #2
Dear John Lewis,
http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2013/may/23/real-violence-50-years-ago-woolworth/
I am writing you this letter because I recently read pages 25-80 of your book March. In this section of the book we see the struggles of African Americans as the fought for the right to vote. We follow you as you go to different protest like the sit ins at diners the were organized by SNCC and Freedom Day.
There was also a mock election that was created so that Black people would have the chance to see what it was like to go through the voting process. We also see you meet with different civil rights leader like Fanny Lou Hamer and Ella Baker. Also, during this time President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated; this discouraged many voter rights activists because he drafted the Civil Rights Act. Luckily President Johnson decided to carry on his legacy by signing the Act into law. I as I read this, I was pretty numb; all my life I have been learning about these events and I’ve gotten to the point where I can’t even allow myself to fully feel the way this injustice makes me feel. When I think about the different types of discrimination black people have gone through, I tend to focus on how resilient the people of that time must have been and not how cruel and ignorant the oppressors of the time were; if I did, I would be in a constant state of rage. I think your intent was to display this resilience and show that in order to get change we must persevere. Even though I know these events to be true I often find myself wondering how people have the determination to withstand this kind of treatment and how any human being can treat people in such an awful way. I think that something we can learn from this story is that when we face injustice, we should continue to fight and be patient and diligent.
Sincerely,
Morgan-Lee Blake