Columnist Elizabeth Chidlow argues that without action, revolutions like the Civil Rights Movement would never have progressed.
At the Scripps Amphitheater on Nov. 11, students and faculty gathered for speeches and a picture of solidarity in response to the protests at the University of Missouri.
“Educate yourself beyond the hashtag,” a student said to the crowd.
Racism takes three closely related forms: individual, institutional and systematic. Individual racism consists of actions that cause death, injury, destruction of property or denial of services or opportunity. Institutional is more subtle and involves policies, practices and procedures of institutions, such as universities, that have a disproportionately negative effect on racial minorities. Systematic is the basis of both individual and institutional racism. It is the system of values embedded in society that supports and allows discrimination.
In 1960, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee became the radical arm of the Civil Rights Movement. The group of young leaders led direct action protests, coordinating the Freedom Riders and leading voter registration drives. Now in 2015, the three forms of racism are still present, and it appears that the Civil Rights Movement is beginning to make a comeback.
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“There’s certainly something of a movement moment happening right now,” professor Angus Johnston of the City University of New York said. “The campus environment right now has, for the past couple of years, reminded me a lot of the early- to mid-60s moment, where there was a lot of stuff happening, a lot of energy — but also a tremendous amount of disillusionment and frustration with the way that things were going in the country as a whole and on the campuses themselves.”
The protests even inspired a response from President Barack Obama.
“I want an activist student body just like I want an activist citizenry, and the issue is just making sure that even as these young people are getting engaged, getting involved, speaking out, that they're also listening,” he said in an interview with ABC. “I'd rather see them err on the side of activism than being passive.”
Speaking on an issue may get the job done, but action is required to truly incite response and inspire others to do the same.
“We speak. We pray. We scream, but without action there will be no revolution,” Martin Luther King, Jr. once said.
Elizabeth Chidlow is a sophomore studying journalism. Do you agree there is a campus movement starting to form again? Email her at ec629914@ohio.edu.
