Preview

Essay On The Movie Selma

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
644 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Essay On The Movie Selma
After watching the extraordinary movie “Selma” i have nothing but positive feedback. This movie touched base on how hard and how awful segregation was in Selma, Alabama. The issue that was focused on was on how blacks weren't able to vote because of how limiting the system was. This is a true story, and it really opened my mind on the topic of segregation. It was also focused on MLK Jr. and the courageous movement he led. His movement consisted of non-violent protest and inspirational meetings amongst blacks all over the country.
The movie started off with the Birmingham, Alabama church bombing, which resulted in the murder of 4 innocent young girls, and later on in the film a young black man by the name of Jimmily Jackson was murdered by a state trooper for being in a non-violent protest and he didn't fight back. All these murders happening left and right all out of hate because the of the pigment of someone's skin, because in the sick minds of some people being a shade darker than someone meant that they aren't
…show more content…
His organization did three things, negotiate, demonstrate, resists. In order to see any change they have to raise the white man's consciousness. You may ask “How are they going to achieve this?”, well in order to do so king said “we must be on the front page of every morning newspaper, and on the Tv news every night.” He also said that the government spends thousands of dollars trying to protect people outside of the country, but are incapable of protecting a race on their own U.S. soil. After one of the marches he was in jail and thought to himself, “they are going to ruin me so they can ruin this movement.” I feel that it's awful the mindset of everyone back then, they were trying to destroy a good man who was in fact doing nothing but good in the name of the lord, without the use of

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Selma and Lincoln are two historical movies about important events that happened in history. Did the directors include all the important details in their movie? Selma is about the Selma marches, lead by Martin Luther King. Throughout the movie, there is a debate between Martin Luther King and President Lyndon B. Johnson. Specifically, King tries countless times to try to persuade Johnson to help King achieve voting rights for black people, but every time Johnson refuses he becomes more annoyed by Kings motivation. Did Johnson refuse King’s idea or is that just how Ava DuVernay, the director wanted to portray him? Lincoln is about the passing of the 13th Amendment. Throughout most of the movie the representatives from each country meet in a courtroom to argue about whether or not to pass the 13th Amendment should. Steven Spielberg, the director forgot to include Fredrick Douglass in the movie. Nevertheless, Douglass was an important part of Lincoln’s presidency. Why…

    • 1285 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    I dearly love the film and maintain that it's one of the great pictures from the last 10 years. I don't know what the director of this movie (Spike Lee) intended the moral to be, but my take on the film has always been that NO ONE does the right thing, and this is the cautionary element of the movie. The racial message about racial injustice is very deep and one that every race should see. The climax of the movie is very powerful and deep. The heat is blazing, tensions are running high (especially racial ones), and under this kind of pressure no one behaves according to common courtesy and decency. The entire film is a chain of uncontrolled outbursts of anger that lead to everyone's misery.…

    • 2324 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    So the movie sketches many notable points at various locations. The movie reviles that all the characters working in the movie are narrow minded either they belong to the white community or the black community. The movie shows that both the parties are trying to inserting their cast or the community but no one is trying to promote the humanity. At individual level both the parties are trying their best for this…

    • 1195 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Martin Luther King Jr. was the acknowledged leader of the American Civil Rights Movement. King earned several degrees and was a bright man. His “Letter from Birmingham Jail” was written in April 1963, while he was in jail in Birmingham, Alabama, for acts of civil disobedience (499). His letter is a response to a letter signed by clergyman criticizing his actions towards civil rights. The clergymen believed that his actions were “untimely.” King states ,”if I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk…I would have no time for constructive work” (500). He usually does not respond to letter that criticize his work and actions, but he believed the clergymen were men of genuine good and they meant no harm. King was president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and they had affiliates all throughout the South. King believed he was supposed to spread freedom. He agreed that if Birmingham ever needed him that he would be there. “Injustice everywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” (500). King used an approach to resolve issues in nonviolent manners. It consisted of sit-ins, marches, and etc. Nonviolent direct action would create a tension that an otherwise ignored subject would have to be faced. With nonviolent direct action and ignored issue would come to light and can no longer be ignored(502). After the direct-action program, King hoped that the doors to negotiation would open.…

    • 833 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    King used ethos and pathos. Ethos means appeal to authority. In Dr. King’s letter, he stated the reason for the nonviolence protest after they had waited for more than three hundred and forty years for their constitutional and God giving rights. Dr. King also stated, “The purpose of our direct-action program is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation”. After Black Americans waited for years and years without any favorable law and conditions, which will at least be, just, they had to protect because as the saying goes if persuasion fails force is applied, they needed to do sometime in order for the authorities to do something and see their seriousness. Even though black American knew the law would not be in their favor, they wanted the lawmakers and the authorities to negotiate with them for a suitable law, which will be just. Nevertheless, pathos, which means appeal to emotions. Black Americans were tired of waiting, bad thing were happening to their family and hardly answered when being asked by their children” Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?, when colored people first name becomes ‘nigger,’ their middle name becomes ‘boy’ however old they were”, they felt they were forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”. Black Americans felt they were being avoided which was true and they hope something will be done about…

    • 1148 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Martin Luther King was an extreme advocate of nonviolent protests in order to achieve social changes. He was the leader of nonviolent protests against segregation “Negros” and “Whites”. Unfortunately, his nonviolent protests to obtain equality between “Negros” and “Whites” were unsuccessful. Additionally, Birmingham City passed a stipulation prohibiting street marches without approval to do so. Therefore, King took action and began protesting for equality because he and his followers were displeased with this legislation. In reaction to the protest, King was arrested and “A Call for Unity” was published that day by clergymen criticizing King saying that the protest was “unwise and untimely.” While King was in jail, he addresses his “Letter from Birmingham City Jail” to the clergymen explaining that what he was doing was the right thing and was at the right time. In his letter, he points out five main points: we are all interrelated, his nonviolent campaign, just laws versus unjust laws, nonviolent resistance, and the misconception of time.…

    • 1307 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Movie Crash Essay

    • 1458 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The movie tells stories about racism between whites, blacks, Latinos, Koreans, Iranians, cops and criminals. The different levels of the rich and the poor, the powerful and powerless are also shown in the movie. The lives of the characters crash against each other. The most people feel prejudice and resentment against people of other groups.…

    • 1458 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The film takes place during the era of segregation and racial discrimination in our country, specifically in Virginia. The town is under extreme chaos after a young black man is killed by a white store owner. The whites and blacks are recently immigrated at T. C. Williams High School, and the film focuses on the school’s football team. In general, the…

    • 953 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    King led many protests, but I think the one that made the biggest impact was the Civil Rights March in Washington, D.C. “This march is known as the largest demonstration ever seen in the nation’s capitol.” (Shmuel Ross) Nobody was sure exactly how many showed up, but it was around 250,000 people. This march was held on August 28, 1963. This was also the place where Martin Luther King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech. This was Dr. King’s most well known speech in America. In this Speech he starts off by saying that even after 100 years of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, African-Americans still do not have equal rights and are still not free. He also states that in the Declaration of Independence it says that all men, African-American and white, were created equal. He later says that he has a dream that one day African-American and whites will have equal rights, and “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their…

    • 910 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Critics and cynics often branded King a ‘glory seeker’ but it was clear that his ultimate leadership in rhetoric and direction was what made the movement. NAACP leader Roy Wilkins described King as presumptuous and self promoting, but King felt that God had called him to leadership. The March on Washington in August 1963 is a testament and historic moment in King’s leadership of the movement. Despite his fear that non-violence was decreasingly popular amongst blacks, many of whom were embittered by then slow pace of change, he felt the march would maintain black morale in advertising the effectiveness of non-violent protest. His memorable speech made a powerful appeal to not only black America, but white America too. King was seen to have coordinated a collaboration of the major civil rights leaders and united them through a national undertaking. Additionally King set up the SCLC in 1957 with the aim of improving the black situation in the South by attracting national attention to racial inequality, a more reasonable platform than that of Malcolm X. King was far more successful…

    • 511 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mississippi Burning

    • 693 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Racism is a major issue that takes place in the film, it is viewed negatively and the director Alan Parker attempts to show to the audience the downsides and how devastating it is, how unfair it can be. The constant, terrorizing attacks against black people by the KKK in are horrific and cruel. Innocent people are killed and homes are put in flames or destroyed for no other reason than the fact that a group of people are racist against others. Film codes used help to place a negative feel in some of these scenes like the use of fire, symbolising evil towards the racist acts. The music performed as well by the black community show the great amount of sadness the people have to suffer. Many various camera shots/angles and lighting for separate scenes change the feeling and the mood. This use of film convections affect the views and opinions of the viewer’s towards the subject of racism, helping people understand the negative of it.…

    • 693 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    King did many things to bring people together through peace. When Rosa Parks was arrested, he did a peaceful boycott to protest the colour laws on the bus. That boycott lasted for 382 days, and almost the entire African americans refused to ride the buses. Even when they were doing a peaceful protest and they children and adults were being blasted with water and then them being arrested, they did not result to violence. The start of the Civil right movement was at the March on Washington on where 250,000 people marched to the Lincoln Memorial where Martin Luther King gave his famous “I have a Dream” speech. In the crowd at the March on Washington, they had undercover marshalls in the crowd to keep the peace, but “the marchers chose peace that sunny Wednessday” (www.history.com Civil Rights Movement). If they hadn’t chosen peace like Malcolm X did, and then the problem would have just gotten worse. The marches and protests were important stepping stones to pass the civil rights. So Martin Luther King brought many people together through his many boycotts, marches, and peaceful protests. They peacefully protested against the political and social injustice. He started his nonviolent protests by the teachings of Ghandi. Martin Luther said after a visit about nonviolence “I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity.” (Crash Course…

    • 430 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, King came to Birmingham for what he believed to be crimes against a race of people as injustice. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” (482). Practicing what he preached, King nonviolent action still landed him in jail. King’s nonviolent campaigns consist of four basic steps to accomplish sometime unachievable goals. “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue” (483). Protesting and marches was organized because the people that were subject to unjust laws knew that taking their fight before a judge in a court room did not stand a chance. These were the very people that want to keep blacks oppressed. “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed” (484). King had specific actions for desired results against immoral unjust laws, but fought back morally…

    • 698 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Loving Story

    • 632 Words
    • 3 Pages

    To me, this story did not only reflect the opinions of our government system, but of the peoples’ consciousness of getting past Jim Crowe segregation laws. The film also gave insight to what other people, at that time, thought about pertaining the laws of being against the “mixing of the races”. The reasons that came out had to do with God not wanting the races to mix and that is why he put them in different continents. A woman stated this in the interview footage and it reflected the line of thinking of many people that were against people like the Lovings.…

    • 632 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “One of the most memorable highlights of King’s career was a speech delivered on August 28, 1963”(CBN). King believed in something more than just skin color. He believed one day people would finally see that we’re not so different and that it’s okay to use the same places and to be treated equal. King decided to devote most his time to make that happen. He participated in walks, wrote and performed speeches, etc. King even won a Nobel Peace Prize for all of his work he put into making things happen.…

    • 492 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays