GREENBRIER COUNTY W.Va. (WVDN) – The Greenbrier Valley Martin Luther King Day Committee is honoring this year’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day Essay Contest winners. This edition features the entry from Henry Cooper.
The Long Story of Segregation
Segregation was a law in the United States which made it legal to separate white people from black people which led to the many memorable events of the Civil Rights Movement. Segregation was a long and truly awful journey that included many events from the murder Emmett to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s many motivational speeches, and many long years of struggle for equality. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. took a giant leap with his strongly spoken “I Have a Dream” speech on August 28, 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial inspiring many people. We are taking steps forward every day which will hopefully one day lead to equality for all people.
One of the biggest events in the history of segregation was when a fourteen year old boy named Emmett Till was murdered on August 28, 1955. What happened was Emmet Till was traveling to Mississippi to visit his grandparents. He walked into a store supposedly flirting with the shop owner’s wife which(she later admitted was a lie). Because of that lie, he was beaten to death. The people who murdered Emmet Till went to court and because the court room was full of white men, the two murderers were found not guilty. This was an event that helped lead up to these big moments in history like Rosa Parks refusing to give up her bus seat, which she even admitted she did for Emmett Till.
Only a couple years later came the Little Rock Central High school integration. The school had been an all-white school until nine Black students called “The Little Rock Nine” were brought into the school. The Arkansas government sent a white mob of soldiers to block the entrance of the school. For the next 18 days, the government discussed the situation. “The Little Rock Nine” were later released from the school on September 23, but were met with violence when they came back. They were continually bullied throughout the school year but fortunately survived the rest of the school year. The government luckily saw this problem which put forth more effort towards ending segregation.
Last but not least, there was the March on Washington on August 28, 1963. This event was really huge, gathering over 250,000 people to the Lincoln Memorial to listen to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Not only did Black people come but so did white people to listen to Dr. King’s speech. This speech had a lot of motivation and emotion for only being seventeen minutes long. It makes you feel power and that everything bad in the world can change. This speech was heard by lots of people. Not only the people that were there heard his statement but so did people around the country. This speech started to help people understand that judging people by their skin color is really not ok. When people started to recognize this, more pushing to end segregation. Thanks to Dr. King pushing the nation through this bad stage in history, we don’t have to go through a lot of this today.
You might say that the events I have shared here don’t connect to Dr. King’s speech, but they in fact do. When Emmett Till was murdered all of the heroes that pushed to end segregation did it for Emmett Till and the people who died before him. All of these people who stood up against segregation were all working together in a way to stop this violence. Thanks to all of these people who stood up for civil rights helped for the people today not to have to experience all of the awful events that they had to experience.
