Individual vs. Society: The Ultimate Showdown
Ever since birth, we are instantaneously coerced to follow the current manifestos of the society we live in. Conformity is installed while the mind is still young and naive, creating sameness, and preventing many renegades and outcasts. We have been taught to be obedient to the people that give us the rules, and with disobedience comes punishment accordingly. When a rare, rebellious outcast appears, the everlasting question arises: How can a society and an individual with different beliefs coexist in a community? The answer is that they cannot, for long - peacefully anyways. In any means, the situation usually tends to heighten. Like Martin Luther King Jr., that individual will take initiative and create a movement that gives courage to others to take a stand with them - even if it does cost jail time or brutal oppression. In the United States during the 1960s, the white community believed in white supremacy and segregation. With contrasting beliefs of equality, Martin Luther King Jr. pushed back against the societal norm, participated in nonviolent protests, and delivered groundbreaking speeches to acquire rightful justice for himself and every other colored person in the nation - eliminating differences and sparking the Civil Rights Movement.
Decades before and the years leading up to the 1960s reeked of havoc. The United States was in awful shape. Post-Civil War reconciliation of Northern and Southern politicians meant increasing indifference towards blacks' civil rights and the reassertion of home rule in the South. The U.S. was simply in need. They needed someone to blame and to let off some steam - a scapegoat. The victim was apparent, and with ease the white community of the United States targeted the blacks. African Americans grew to inhabit a starkly unequal world of disenfranchisement, segregation and various forms of oppression, including race-inspired violence. The society culminated into a...