Tyrone English

POLS 1101
Eyes on the Prize Reflection
The sacrifices made by the participants of the Civil Rights Movements documented in ​Eyes on
the Prize ​were very important in securing vital rights that many Americans enjoy today, but the
movement as a whole was only a step on the path for liberation that many minority groups in the
United States are still marching on today. For example, Mamie Till’s struggle against the state
of Mississippi. Although she had moved North, she was still made a victim to the blind violence
and hatred in the South. Like many other people at the time, she was reminded that Black lives
were still seen as less than human by a large percentage of the population in her own home
country. Despite the trauma she went through she was able to speak on her son’s behalf and risk
her own life to attend his trial in Mississippi, the most dangerous place to be black in the nation
at the time. The freedom riders also made a huge sacrifice riding through segregated cities in the
south in large groups. They risked being jailed in places that ignored the Supreme Court's ruling
and they also ran the risk of hate crimes everytime they stopped. Claudette Colman also
sacrificed a great deal in protest to unjust segregation laws. She refused to give up her bus seat
before Rosa Parks but never got national attention for jumpstarting the Montgomery boycott
because she didn’t have the refined image that Rosa Parks did. Another similar struggle was
faced by the Edgars family throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Medgar Evers was an advocate for
civil rights (especially voting rights in Mississippi) and was murdered by a member of the
Citizens Council, who wasn’t convicted until the 90s. Myrlie Edgards, his wife reacted very
differently than Mamie Till upon the death of her loved one. In the documentary she talked
about wishing she’d had the machine gun to mow all the policemen who had come in hatred of
the system that made the death of great men like Medgar Evars so common. Her husband was
only advocating that Blacks in Mississippi be able to freely exercise the rights promised to every
American citizen, and was murdered in cold blood. I appreciated that clip because when you
hear about civil rights you tend to hear a lot about white hatred of Black people and the problems
it caused, but you seldom hear about the anger of Black people against the unjustness of
American society, this anger that had to be suppressed on a daily basis while white people across
the country continually manifested their hatred in violent and terrible ways for hundreds of years.
I don’t believe that the many sacrifices made during the Civil Rights movement were made in
vain, because our nation has progressed a lot since the 1960’s at providing more opportunity to
Black people, but it is still not enough. I think to call Black Americans free in today’s America
would be an overstatement. This is evident in the way that our country responds to the killing of
unarmed Black people by police officers, or the lack of funding for public schools in inner cities
and predominantly Black communities, and a privatized healthcare and prison system which
disproportionately fails the Black communities. Peaceful protestors are still having to deal with
violent escalation at the hands of police forces which are ignored while looting is covered
extensively. There is a long way to go until Liberation is achieved, but the Civil Rights
movements laid the groundwork for progress for years to come.