I'm taking a break from my "30 day challenges" because I just watched an amazing film on PBS about the Freedom Riders (not to be confused with the movie Freedom WRITERS). May marks the 50th anniversary of this event. I didn't catch the very beginning, and I have to admit that I really didn't know anything at all about this movement until I watched this movie. As Forest said, you learn about it in high school, but all the book says is that the Freedom Riders movement occurred in 1961....and thats about it...it doesn't tell you the gritty details, the blood and tears shed and the beatings these people took, all because they wanted to ride on a bus together to New Orleans. I was overcome with emotion as I heard their stories and everything they went through, and I just can't understand or imagine how people can be filled with so much hate...and over what? the color of their skin?? I really can't wrap my mind around it. I think that every high schooler, (really everyone) should have to watch this because it really opens your eyes. It also makes you see how far you can go if you follow your heart and fight (in this case nonviolently) for what you believe in. It's pretty amazing how far we've come, yet there's still so much hatred in the world, and not just over race, and I realize that there always will be. There is no end to ignorance, but it's amazing what peace and love can do if you just give it a chance.
''"The people that took a seat on these buses, that went to jail in Jackson, that went to Parchman, they were never the same. We had moments there to learn, to teach each other the way of nonviolence, the way of love, the way of peace. The Freedom Ride created an unbelievable sense: Yes, we will make it. Yes, we will survive. And that nothing, but nothing, was going to stop this movement," recalls Congressman John Lewis, one of the original Riders.
Here's a link to the PBS website, it tells you about the movie and the movement, although I don't think you can actually watch the video on the site...but it's still worth looking at Freedom Riders
i saw this on oprah......so awesome that people went to such lengths for things they believed in....and just think how awful things would be had they not stood up for things they believed so strongly in...."kids today" would just simply have created some group on facebook and called it quits....i'm def going to have to see the actual PBS movie...but oprah did a good job honoring them too....
ReplyDeleteI didn't get to see the whole thing. I wish I had...but what I did see was very moving...and yes, you're so totally right about "kids today" making a facebook page and thinking thats enough...
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