Prompt 2: Conflict is born of prejudice
The Civil Rights Movement Now: Ferguson Who was Michael Brown? Michael Brown was an 18-year-old black American who was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 9, 2014. Brown was unarmed. Brown was visiting his grandmother, when he was shot in the working-class St. Louis suburb. A high school graduate, Brown was scheduled to start college classes two days after he was killed. Following the shooting of Michael Brown, Ferguson residents took to the streets to protest what many view as unfair treatment of the black community. Police responded with a highly armed presence meant to contain demonstrators and prevent violence. The protests were volatile. Sometimes the atmosphere was essentially festive, with police taking little to no action against demonstrators. Other times reports of thrown objects, gunshots, Molotov cocktails, and looting prompted police action, and the situation spiraled into further chaos. Protesters and media also complained that police at times moved in when the demonstrators were acting largely peacefully, which caused the situation to unnecessarily escalate. The following link provides information about the conflict in Ferguson: http://www.vox.com/cards/mike-brown-protests-ferguson-missouri/mike-brown-ferguson-MO-protests 'Ferguson's Burning' Ezra Furman is an American indie singer song-writer based in Chicago. After the shooting of Michael Brown, he wrote a song that expressed his view of Michael Brown's death Then: Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith
Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, both black Americans were lynched in Marion, Indiana on August 7, 1930. They had been arrested that night as suspects in a robbery, murder and rape case. After the arrest of three teenage boys - Thomas Shipp (18), Abram Smith (19) and James Cameron (16) - a crowd gathered in front of the Marion jail demanding that the sheriff release the men. The angry mob beat down the jail doors, pulled the men from their cells, brutally beat them, and dragged them to a tree on the courthouse square. At the last minute the mob spared Cameron, the youngest. Smith and Shipp died, lynch ropes around their necks. A year later when the case went to trial, Mary Ball, the alleged victim, testified that she had not been raped. Local photographer Lawrence Beitler took what would become the most iconic photograph of lynching in America. The photograph shows two bodies hanging from a tree surrounded by a crowd of ordinary citizens, including women and children. Thousands of copies were made and sold. The photograph inspired Abel Meeropol to write the song 'Strange Fruit'. 'Strange Fruit' Southern trees bear a strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black body swinging in the Southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees. Pastoral scene of the gallant South, The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth, Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh, And the sudden smell of burning flesh! Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck, For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck, For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop, Here is a strange and bitter crop. 'Strange Fruit' (1939), a song performed by Billie Holiday, is regarded as the first popular protest song. More than propaganda for a specific audience, the song shouldered an explicit political message into the arena of entertainment. Then: The power of community
'We Shall Overcome' 'We Shall Overcome' is an anthem of the Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968) 'Civil rights activists sing the freedom songs today for the same reason the slaves sang them, because we too are in bondage and the songs add hope to our determination that…we shall overcome some day.' - Martin Luther King, Then: The Freedom Riders In the spring of 1961, black and white civil rights activists rode buses to protest the segregationist policies of the Southern states of America http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-freedom-riders-then-and-now-45351758/?no-ist 'Sister Rosa' 'Sister Rosa' is a song by The Neville Brothers. It was released in 1989. Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was a black American civil rights activist. Park is referred to as 'the first lady of civil rights' and 'the mother of the freedom movement'. On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks refused to obey the bus driver's order that she give up her seat in the coloured section to a white passenger, after the white section was filled. Parks' act of defiance and the Montgomery Bus Boycott became important symbols of the Civil Rights Movement. She became an international icon of resistance to racial segregation. |
Then: 1963 - The march on Washington On August 28, 1963, Dr Martin Luther King led 250,000 civil rights marchers to Washington in what The New York Times called 'the greatest assembly for the redress of grievances that this capital has ever seen'. King delivered his historic 'I have a dream' speech at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial. President Kennedy praised the marchers' dignity, and a young folk singer called Bob Dylan sang two of his own songs for the crowd. 'The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll' 'The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll' is a protest song by Bob Dylan. The song gives a factual account of the killing of a 51-year-old barmaid, Hattie Carroll, by William Devereux "Billy" Zantzinger (whom the song calls "William Zanzinger"), and his subsequent sentence to six months in a county jail. The lyrics are a commentary on 1960s racism. When Hattie Carroll was killed in 1963, Charles County was still strictly segregated by race. Zantzinger was convicted of manslaughter on August 28, 1963, and was not tried by a jury of peers but by a panel of three judges. The sentence was handed down on the same day as the march on Washington. Dylan read about the conviction of Zantzinger on his way home from the march. http://www.theguardian.com/music/2005/feb/25/bobdylan An end to Apartheid After the National Party gained power in South Africa in 1948, the all white government enforced policies of racial segregation under a system of legislation that it called apartheid. Under apartheid, nonwhite South Africans (a majority of the population) would be forced to live in separate areas from whites and use separate public facilities, and contact between the two groups would be limited. Despite strong and consistent opposition to apartheid within and outside of South Africa, its laws remained in effect for close to 50 years. By 1950, the government had banned inter-racial marriages and prohibited sexual relations between black and white South Africans. The Population Registration Act of 1950 classified all South Africans by race, including Bantu (black Africans), Coloured (mixed race) and white. In some cases, the legislation split families; parents could be classified as white, while their children were classified as colored. A series of Land Acts set aside more than 80 percent of the country’s land for the white minority, and pass laws required non-whites to carry documents authorising their presence in restricted areas. Resistance to apartheid within South Africa took many forms over the years, from non-violent demonstrations, protests and strikes to political action and eventually to armed resistance. By 1961, most resistance leaders had been captured and sentenced to long prison terms or executed. Nelson Mandela, a founder of the ANC, was incarcerated from 1963 to 1990; his imprisonment drew international attention and gathered support for the anti-apartheid cause. 'Nelson Mandela' is a song written by British musician Jerry Dammers and performed by band The Special A.K.A. The song, released in 1984, as a protest against the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela by the pro-apartheid South African government. Unlike most protest songs, the track is upbeat and celebratory, drawing on musical influences from South Africa. A new constitution, which enfranchised blacks and other racial groups, took effect in 1994, and elections that year led to a coalition government with a nonwhite majority, marking the official end of the apartheid system. In December 2013, following the news of Nelson Mandela's death, The Special's 'Nelson Mandela' re-entered at number ninety six on the UK Singles Chart. 'Biko' by Peter Gabriel Stephen Biko was an anti-apartheid activist in South Africa who died in police custody. The film Cry Freedom tells the story of what happened to Biko. While living, his writings and activism attempted to empower black people, and he was famous for his slogan 'black is beautiful. |
Indigenous rights and wrongs
Countless songs have documented the suffering of Indigenous Australians.
Goanna’s 'Solid Rock' (1982), Warumpi Band’s 'Blackfella/Whitefella' (1985), Midnight Oil's 'Beds are Burning' (1987), Yothu Yindi’s 'Treaty' (1991) and Pauline Pantsdown's 'Sorry' (1994) are just some of the songs that called for political and social change in the treatment of Indigenous Australians.
Less a protest song, Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody’s 'From Little Things Big Things Grow' (1991) portrayed the dignity, perseverance and power of Vincent Lingiari's campaign for Indigenous land rights and Reconciliation. The Gurindji strike referenced in the song led to the Commonwealth Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 which gave Aboriginal people freehold title to traditional lands in the Northern Territory and the power of veto over mining and development on those lands. In 1975, 3,236 km² of land was handed back to the Gurindji people by Prime Minister Whitlam.
Sorry
The term ‘Stolen Generations’ refers to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians who were forcibly removed, as children, from their families and communities by government, welfare or church authorities and placed into institutional care or with non-Indigenous foster families. The forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children began as early as the mid 1800s and continued until 1970. Many of these removals occurred as the result of official laws and policies aimed at assimilating the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population into the wider community.
The 1997 Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families, conducted by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, found that between one in ten and three in ten Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were forcibly removed from their families and communities in the years 1910 to 1970.
The Bringing Them Home report found that the forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families and communities has had life-long and profoundly disabling consequences for those taken, and has negatively affected the entire Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. For many of the children, removal meant that they lost all connection to family, traditional land, culture and language and were taken to homes and institutions where they were often abused, neglected and unloved.
The Bringing Them Home report suggested that the first step in healing is the acknowledgment of truth and the delivery of an apology.
On 13 February 2008, the then Prime Minister, the Honorouble Kevin Rudd MP, moved a motion of Apology to Australia's Indigenous Peoples with specific reference to the Stolen Generations. The Prime Minister described it as an occasion for ‘the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence in the future’.
The motion honoured Indigenous Australians and reflected in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations: ‘For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry’.
Archie Roach's 'They Took The Children Away' (1990) tells the story of the Stolen Generation.
Countless songs have documented the suffering of Indigenous Australians.
Goanna’s 'Solid Rock' (1982), Warumpi Band’s 'Blackfella/Whitefella' (1985), Midnight Oil's 'Beds are Burning' (1987), Yothu Yindi’s 'Treaty' (1991) and Pauline Pantsdown's 'Sorry' (1994) are just some of the songs that called for political and social change in the treatment of Indigenous Australians.
Less a protest song, Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody’s 'From Little Things Big Things Grow' (1991) portrayed the dignity, perseverance and power of Vincent Lingiari's campaign for Indigenous land rights and Reconciliation. The Gurindji strike referenced in the song led to the Commonwealth Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 which gave Aboriginal people freehold title to traditional lands in the Northern Territory and the power of veto over mining and development on those lands. In 1975, 3,236 km² of land was handed back to the Gurindji people by Prime Minister Whitlam.
Sorry
The term ‘Stolen Generations’ refers to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians who were forcibly removed, as children, from their families and communities by government, welfare or church authorities and placed into institutional care or with non-Indigenous foster families. The forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children began as early as the mid 1800s and continued until 1970. Many of these removals occurred as the result of official laws and policies aimed at assimilating the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population into the wider community.
The 1997 Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families, conducted by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, found that between one in ten and three in ten Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were forcibly removed from their families and communities in the years 1910 to 1970.
The Bringing Them Home report found that the forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families and communities has had life-long and profoundly disabling consequences for those taken, and has negatively affected the entire Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. For many of the children, removal meant that they lost all connection to family, traditional land, culture and language and were taken to homes and institutions where they were often abused, neglected and unloved.
The Bringing Them Home report suggested that the first step in healing is the acknowledgment of truth and the delivery of an apology.
On 13 February 2008, the then Prime Minister, the Honorouble Kevin Rudd MP, moved a motion of Apology to Australia's Indigenous Peoples with specific reference to the Stolen Generations. The Prime Minister described it as an occasion for ‘the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence in the future’.
The motion honoured Indigenous Australians and reflected in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations: ‘For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry’.
Archie Roach's 'They Took The Children Away' (1990) tells the story of the Stolen Generation.
|
This story's right, this story's true
I would not tell lies to you Like the promises they did not keep And how they fenced us in like sheep. Said to us come take our hand Sent us off to mission land. Taught us to read, to write and pray Then they took the children away, Took the children away, The children away. Snatched from their mother's breast Said this is for the best Took them away. |
So what could you write about?
The possibilities are endless. Some options are listed below.
- Research the civil rights movement in America. Write a speech that may have been made by an ordinary citizen - black or white - about the need for change. Locate your response in a particular moment in the history of the civil rights movement.
- Write a letter to the editor that could have been published in a newspaper (circa 1980s) opposing apartheid in South Africa.
- Write an opinion column about whether or not Australian society is addressing the disadvantages faced by Indigenous Australians.
- Write in an expository way about a song or songs about prejudice.
- Write about an experience of prejudice.