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Contents contributed and discussions participated by Alexa Mason

Alexa Mason

Is Sheryl Sandberg's "Lean In" The Next Great Feminist Manifesto? - 0 views

  • From an early age, girls get the message that they will have to choose between succeeding at work and being a good mother
  • We internalize the negative messages we get throughout our lives—the messages that say it’s wrong to be outspoken, aggressive, more powerful than men. We lower our own expectations of what we can achieve. We continue to do the majority of the housework and child care. We compromise our career goals to make room for partners and children who may not even exist yet.
  • Sandberg argues that the reason women hold themselves back in their careers is because of those messages they’ve received their entire lives: that it’s not very feminine to be aggressive or ambitious; that as a woman it’s nearly impossible to have both a career and a family. Her point isn’t that women aren’t ambitious, but rather that women are afraid to fully embrace their ambitions because they’ve been convinced of those two messages their entire lives.
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    This Ms. Magazine article takes a look at Sheryl Sandberg's "Lean In". A book that suggests that women have internalized negative messages about a woman's role, how a woman should behave in the workplace, where a woman belongs in the work place, etc. For example, women shouldn't be aggressive or ambitious, it's not feminine. She challenges the idea of femininity in the corporate world and encourages women to take more risks. This "Lean In" feminism is challenged by some because not every woman defines her feminism as being "more like men" as desiring to be treated fairly, like men.
Alexa Mason

The Three Waves of Feminism - Fall 2008 - PACIFIC Magazine - Pacific University - 1 views

  • The first wave of feminism took place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, emerging out of an environment of urban industrialism and liberal, socialist politics. The goal of this wave was to open up opportunities for women, with a focus on suffrage.
  • The second wave began in the 1960s and continued into the 90's. This wave unfolded in the context of the anti-war and civil rights movements and the growing self-consciousness of a variety of minority groups around the world.
  • sexuality and reproductive rights were dominant issues, and much of the movement's energy was focused on passing the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing social equality regardless of sex.
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  • Whereas the first wave of feminism was generally propelled by middle class white women, the second phase drew in women of color and developing nations, seeking sisterhood and solidarity and claiming "Women's struggle is class struggle." Feminists spoke of women as a social class and coined phrases such as "the personal is political" and "identity politics" in an effort to demonstrate that race, class, and gender oppression are all related. They initiated a concentrated effort to rid society top-to-bottom of sexism, from children's cartoons to the highest levels of government.
  • n this phase many constructs have been destabilized, including the notions of "universal womanhood," body, gender, sexuality and hetreronormativity. An aspect of third phase feminism that mystifies the mothers of the earlier feminist movement is the readoption by young feminists of the very lip-stick, high-heals, and cleavage proudly exposed by low cut necklines that the first two phases of the movement identified with male oppression. Pinkfloor expressed this new position when she said; "It's possible to have a push-up bra and a brain at the same time.
  • third wave have stepped onto the stage as strong and empowered, eschewing victimization and defining feminine beauty for themselves as subjects, not as objects of a sexist patriarchy
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    This webpage explores the three waves of feminism. The first is the one that we usually think of when we think about early feminism, Rosie the Riveter, yes we can and suffrage. The second wave coincided with many other civil rights activist groups, we saw the introduction of women of color and lower class women. We saw a focus on family, sexuality and reproductive rights. The third, and current, wave is about defining roles and identities for themselves and not based on patriarchy or misogyny. It's okay to embrace sexuality, sexualized appearances, etc, as long as it's a choice and not forced.
Alexa Mason

A basic definition of patriarchy - 0 views

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    This webpage is dedicated to exploring patriarchy as it relates to "The Gender Knot" by Allan Johnson. Patriarchy, as per Johnson, asserts male domination, organization around males, and the fact that society is not only male-centered but also male-identified. There are always exceptions to the rules, but according to Johnson in this male centered and dominated society, men most often sit in the positions of power while women are relegated to the margins.
Alexa Mason

Fear of Feminism: Why Young Women Get the Willies | Vancouver Rape Relief & Women&#... - 0 views

  • Gender consciousness is a necessary precondition for feminist consciousness, but they are not the same. The difference lies in the link between gender and politics. Feminism politicizes gender consciousness, inserts it into a systematic analysis of histories and structures of domination and privilege. Feminism asks questions--difficult and complicated questions, often with contradictory and confusing answers--about how gender consciousness can be used both for and against women, how vulnerability and difference help and hinder women's self-determination and freedom. Fear of feminism, then, is not a fear of gender, but rather a fear of politics. Fear of politics can be understood as a fear of living in consequences, a fear of reprisals.
  • Gender consciousness is a necessary precondition for feminist consciousness, but they are not the same. The difference lies in the link between gender and politics. Feminism politicizes gender consciousness, inserts it into a systematic analysis of histories and structures of domination and privilege. Feminism asks questions--difficult and complicated questions, often with contradictory and confusing answers--about how gender consciousness can be used both for and against women, how vulnerability and difference help and hinder women's self-determination and freedom. Fear of feminism, then, is not a fear of gender, but rather a fear of politics. Fear of politics can be understood as a fear of living in consequences, a fear of reprisals.
  • Gender consciousness is a necessary precondition for feminist consciousness, but they are not the same. The difference lies in the link between gender and politics. Feminism politicizes gender consciousness, inserts it into a systematic analysis of histories and structures of domination and privilege. Feminism asks questions--difficult and complicated questions, often with contradictory and confusing answers--about how gender consciousness can be used both for and against women, how vulnerability and difference help and hinder women's self-determination and freedom. Fear of feminism, then, is not a fear of gender, but rather a fear of politics. Fear of politics can be understood as a fear of living in consequences, a fear of reprisals.
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  • Gender consciousness is a necessary precondition for feminist consciousness, but they are not the same. The difference lies in the link between gender and politics. Feminism politicizes gender consciousness, inserts it into a systematic analysis of histories and structures of domination and privilege. Feminism asks questions--difficult and complicated questions, often with contradictory and confusing answers--about how gender consciousness can be used both for and against women, how vulnerability and difference help and hinder women's self-determination and freedom. Fear of feminism, then, is not a fear of gender, but rather a fear of politics. Fear of politics can be understood as a fear of living in consequences, a fear of reprisals.
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    This webpage, an essay previously published in Ms. Magazine, a feminist magazine explores why some young women fear feminism. It explores why this fear might be present. Interestingly, it explores gender consciousness and how this changes once placed within the feminist lens. Feminism takes the consciousness of womanhood and asks questions and analyzes how this consciousness of womanhood can help and harm woman publicly and privately.
Alexa Mason

Unveiling the 'Madonna-Whore' Complex | Alternet - 0 views

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    This webpage discusses the "madonna-whore" complex. This complex essentially suggests that men categorize women in two ways: the woman he admires, either maternally or romantically, and the other who is more of a sexualized fantasy. I think this complex also touches on the good girl versus bad girl, whereas one is meant to be valued and one is meant to be devalued.
Alexa Mason

Franklin D. Roosevelt - American Heritage Center, Inc. - 0 views

  • Federal Securities Act of May 1933/ Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) This act required full disclosure of information on stocks being sold. The SEC regulated the stock market. Congress also gave the Federal Reserve Board the power to regulate the purchase of stock on margin. Critical for long-term success for businesses.
  • Works Progress Administration (WPA) 1935-1943 This agency provided work for 8 million Americans. The WPA constructed or repaired schools, hospitals, airfields, etc. Decreased unemployment.
  • Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 This banned child labor and set a minimum wage. This law was a long awaited triumph for the progressive-era social reformers.
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  • Social Security Act This act established a system that provided old-age pensions for workers, survivors benefits for victims of industrial accidents, unemployment insurance, and aid for dependent mothers and children, the blind and physically disabled. Although the original SSA did not cover farm and domestic workers, it did help millions of Americans feel more secure.  
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    This webpage presents a table outlining the many and varied programs brought forth by the New Deal. The table describes the program and its outcome. The New Deal changed the lives of many Americans through the implementing of a minimum wage, the creation of jobs, the banning of child labor and especially the Social Security Act.
Alexa Mason

The unemployed workers' movement of the 1930s - 0 views

  • The 1930s produced the largest movement of the unemployed and poor that the country had ever known. The jobless rebelled against the inequalities produced by capitalism, an institution of rising profits for the wealthy ruling class. Protest movements emerged that pitted the rulers against those who were ruled — those whom the system had failed.
  • The CP declared those out of work to be “the tactical key to present the state of the class struggle
  • ommunists declared March 6, 1930, to be International Unemployment Day, and led marches and rallies of the unemployed in most of the major cities in the U.S. Several thousand marched to factories and auto plants to demand jobs and unemployment insurance. Thousands of unemployed veterans descended on Washington, D.C. Millions of unemployed Blacks and whites marched together, sometimes leading to bloodshed instigated by the cops. Federal troops made war on unarmed people, while the mainstream press branded the demonstrations as “riots.”
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  • During the 1930s, the Communist Party played a leading role in fighting for the demands of African Americans — who were devastated by the Great Depression — and helped mobilize them for their struggle. Thousands of them joined the CP. The CP also undertook food collections in the Black community of Harlem, N.Y., where unemployment had risen to as high as 80 percent.
  • Communist Party-led trade union organizations fought against the white chauvinistic policy of the American Federation of Labor, which excluded Black workers, and demanded a united labor movement based on equal rights for all workers. In the Black Belt South, they also led the sharecroppers union, which fought courageously against the tyranny of the planters. Members of the Black working class subsequently became leaders of the Black liberation movement
  • A Wealth Tax Act, Wagner Act and Social Security Act were implemented. Under the 1935 Social Security Act, the federal government paid a share of state and local public assistance costs. A Civilian Conservation Corps, designed to stimulate the economy, provided jobs as well.
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    This article outlines the work of the Communist party in 1930s America. The Communist party was integral in mobilizing the unemployed working class in an effort to get fair and secure pay as well as jobs when unemployment drastically rose during the great depression. The Communist Party lead marches and protests, though they sometimes ended in bloodshed as the media depicted these demonstrations as riots. The party also provided an alternative to the exclusionary American Federation of Labor. It also provided framework for the mobilization of the black worker during this time.
Alexa Mason

Scottboro Boys - 0 views

  • Hoboing was a common pastime in the Depression year of 1931.  For some, riding freights was an appealing adventure compared to the drudgery and dreariness of their daily lives.  Others hopped rail cars to move from  one fruitless job search to the next. 
  • hoping to investigate a rumor of government jobs in Memphis hauling logs on the river a
  • Representing the Boys in their uphill legal battle were Stephen Roddy and Milo Moody. They were no "Dream Team."  Roddy was an unpaid and unprepared Chattanooga real estate attorney who, on the first day of trial, was "so stewed he could hardly walk straight."  Moody was a forgetful seventy-year old local attorney who hadn't tried a case in decades.
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  • he cases were appealed to the United States Supreme Court which overturned the convictions in the landmark case of Powell vs Alabama.  The Court, 7 - 2, ruled that the right of the defendants under the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause to  competent legal counsel had been denied by Alabama.  There would have to be new trials.
  • .  The Scottsboro Boys, for better or worse, cast their lots with the Communists who, in the South, were "treated with only slightly more courtesy than a gang of rapists."
  • The NAACP, which might have been expected to rush to the defense of the Scottsboro Boys, did not.  Rape was a politically explosive charge in the South, and the NAACP was concerned about damage to its effectiveness that might result if it turned out some or all of the Boys were guilty.  Instead, it was the Communist Party that moved aggressively to make the Scottsboro case their own.  The Party saw the case as providing a great recruiting tool among southern blacks and northern liberals. 
  • Everyone who had followed the case knew that Bates and Price both were wearing overalls.
  • She was a person of low repute, a prostitute.  She was neither crying, bleeding, or seriously bruised after the alleged gang rape.  She was fearful of being arrested for a Mann Act violation (crossing state lines for immoral purposes) when she met the posse in Paint Rock, so she and Bates made groundless accusations of rape to deflect attention from their own sins
  • As their trial date approached, they were moved to the Decatur jail, a rat-infested facility that two years earlier had been condemned as "unfit for white prisoners."
  • investigation could turn up no evidence of a Callie Brochie or the boardinghouse that Price said she owned,
  • Wright asked the Patterson jurors "whether justice in this case is going to be bought and sold with Jew money from New York?
  • Safely back in New York after the trial Leibowitz said of the jury that had just found his client guilty: "If you ever saw those creatures, those bigots whose mouths are slits in their faces, whose eyes popped out at you like frogs, whose chins dripped tobacco juice, bewhiskered and filthy, you would not ask how they could do it.
  • In his instructions to the jury, Callahan told them that they should presume that no white woman in Alabama would consent to sex with a blac
  • Why did Gilley suddenly appear as a prosecution witness when they most needed him?  Knight admitted that he sent weekly checks to Gilley's mother and occasional spending money to Gilley. 
  • No surprise to anyone, Patterson was again convicted of rape.  What was surprising, however, was that the jury sentenced him to seventy-five years in prison rather than giving him the death sentence the prosecution requested.  One determined Methodist on the jury succeeded in persuading the other eleven to go along with his "compromise."  The verdict represented the first time in the history of Alabama that a black man convicted of raping a white woman had not been sentenced to death.
  • Free of Alabama, but not of the label "Scottsboro Boy" or from the wounds inflicted by six years in prison, they went on with their separate lives: to marriage, to alcoholism, to jobs, to fatherhood, to hope, to disillusionment, to disease, or to suicide.
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    This webpage is dedicated to discussing the case and subsequent trials of the "Scottsboro Boys". The story of the Scottsboro boys illustrates an intersection between race and class in the southern United States in the 1930s. A group of black boys aboard a hobo train seeking work along with a smaller group of white boys and girls. A group of the black boys were accused by two white girls of having been raped. The girls attempted to present themselves as being of a higher class, so as to suggest that they would never be caught dead on one of those trains with those types of people. Truthfully, however, the girls were in fact on the train with them and seeking work as well. The NAACP, a mostly middle-class organization, initially didn't want to have anything to do with the case. They were more concerned with respectability. It was the Communist party's International Labor Defense who ultimately provided competent legal counsel for the boys.
Alexa Mason

The 1930s" Turning Point for US Labor - 0 views

  • But they spoke too soon. Before the decade was over, the U.S. economy had plunged into the worst depression in U.S. history. The 1929 stock market crash which marked the beginning of the Great Depression ushered in a period of immiseration for virtually the entire working class. By 1932 it was estimated that 75 percent of the population was living in poverty, and fully one-third was unemployed. And in many places, Black unemployment rates were two, three, or even four times those of white workers.
  • the richest people in society felt no sympathy for the starving masses.
  • hey banded together as a group to oppose every measure to grant government assistance to feed the hungry or help the homeless
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  • In 1934, when 400,000 East Coast textile workers went on strike to win union recognition, the bosses responded with a reign of terror, provoking one of the bitterest and bloodiest strikes in U.S. labor history.
  • Most importantly, the working class was no longer segregated along racial lines. The slowdown in immigration after 1914 brought with it a corresponding increase in internal migration. A half-million Southern Blacks moved north during World War I. By 1930, more than 25 percent of Black men were employed in industrial jobs, compared with only 7 percent in 1890. By the mid—1930s, Black workers made up 20 percent of the laborers and 6 percent of the operatives in the steel industry nationally. And one-fifth of the workforce in Chicago’s slaughterhouses was Black. White workers couldn’t hope to win unless they united with Black workers–and that wouldn’t happen unless they organized on the basis of equality.1
  • Teamster President Daniel Tobin even repeated former AFL President Sam Gompers’ earlier insult, calling unskilled workers "garbage."
  • n the early 1930s, unskilled workers who wanted to unionize had no choice but to apply for membership in the AFL, but became quickly disillusioned by the indifference–and sometimes hostility–toward them by the union leadership. Unskilled and semi-skilled workers who joined the AFL were quickly shuffled off into "federal locals"–as subsidiaries with fewer rights than the brotherhoods of skilled workers
  • The NAACP proposed to the AFL "the formation of an interracial workers’ commission to promote systematic propaganda against racial discrimination in the unions." In 1929, the NAACP again appealed to the AFL to fight racial discrimination. In both instances, the AFL did not even bother to respond.17 B
  • The workers of this country have rights under this law which cannot be taken from them, and nobody will be permitted to whittle them away but, on the other hand, no aggression is necessary now to attain these rights…. The principle that applies to the employer applies to workers as well and I ask you workers to cooperate in the same spirit.23
  • Blacks were effectively excluded from receiving minimum wages established in particular industries, because the NRA allowed employers to exempt predominantly Black job categories from coverage. In the South, where Black workers were still concentrated, workers were routinely paid less than Northern workers for the same jobs in the same industries. And in industries in which Black and white workers’ wages were made equal, it was common practice for racist employers to simply fire all their Black workers and replace them with whites, arguing that the NRA wage minimums were "too much money for Negroes." It was with good reason that within a matter of months, the NRA was known among Black workers as the "Negro Removal Act" and the "Negro Robbed Again."
  • The Great Depression was the most significant period of class struggle that has ever taken place in the United States. The sheer intensity of the struggle led ever broader sections of the working class to become radicalized and to begin to generalize politically. For a very short period of time as the working class movement advanced–between 1935 and 1937–the level of radicalization was such that on a fairly large scale workers began to realize that if they were to have a chance at winning, they had to confront all the bosses’ attempts to divide and weaken the working-class movement. Workers had to break down racial barriers and build genuine unity and solidarity; they had to prepare themselves to confront the violence of the bosses, which grew in ferocity during this period; they had to fight against anti-communism; and they had to break with the Democrats and the Republicans and form an independent working-class party.
  • But the Communist Party developed its first national campaign against racism through its years-long effort to free the Scottsboro Boys. The Scottsboro Boys case began in 1931 and dragged on for nearly 20 years, making it one of the most important antiracist struggles in U.S. history. But it was also important because it marked the first time in the U.S. that Black and white workers had ever joined together in large numbers in a campaign against racism. The Scottsboro Boys were nine Black youths, aged 13 to 21, who were arrested in Alabama on a charge of gang-raping two white women on a train. There was no evidence to support a charge of rape, but that didn’t matter–particularly since Alabama is a Southern state, where it was common practice to convict Black men on unsubstantiated charges of raping white women. Within two weeks of the incident, the Scottsboro Boys had been tried, convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white jury–all while a huge lynch mob of white racists stood inside and outside the courtroom. The Scottsboro Boys case was primarily an issue of racism, but it also divided the Black population along class lines. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a traditionally middle-class, liberal Black organization, refused to touch the case at first. As one author described, "[T]he last thing they wanted was to identify the Association with a gang of mass rapists unless they were reasonably certain the boys were innocent or their constitutional rights had been abridged."52 But the Communist Party had no such reservations. It immediately sent a legal delegation from its International Labor Defense (ILD) committee to offer to defend the Scottsboro Boys in court.
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    This webpage describes the conditions in America in the 1930s. It outlines the struggles of the working class as the depression hit. It illustrates the demarcation between classes, especially the working class and the business owners who fought to prevent unionized workers. The reader learns about the violence incited as a result the business owner's fight to limit unions. The webpage also goes on to discuss the plight of black workers in America. The site illustrates an intersection between race and class through examples such as the Scottsboro Boys' case.
Alexa Mason

Photographs from the FSA and OWI - 0 views

  • Census records, real estate guides, and fire insurance maps draw a profile of the neighborhood in the 1930s. Situated at the southern end of the city's Yorkville District, the block was predominantly Italian, although many Irish and Poles lived on nearby East Side streets. The population grew during the decade, with most families living in rented three- or four-room apartments or in "rooming and lodging" houses built before 1900. Most buildings provided shared toilets and tubs, and nearly all residents had electricity or gas for cooking and lighting. Rents ranged from ten to fifty dollars per month. Residents either rode public transportation (a tramway ran parallel to East Sixty-first Street and the EL traveled along Second Avenue) or walked; few owned automobiles. A Roman Catholic church--identified as Our Lady of Perpetual Help on a 1934 map--adjoined a parochial school facing East Sixty-second Street. Many small businesses served the neighborhood, and a few larger concerns like warehouses and a laundry that served a citywide clientele.11
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    This webpage is from the Library of Congress. It includes twenty photographs taken by Walker Evans for the Farm Security Administration. The photographs portray a New York City block in the 1930s. According to the Library of Congress, the census and real estate guides to place the block within a historical context. The webpage describes not only Evans' career and photography style but the analysis of the subject, this particular New York City block, provides the reader with background such as the types of households, tenants and businesses that occupied this neighborhood during this time.
Alexa Mason

Five examples of civil disobedience to remember | Richard Seymour | Comment is free | t... - 0 views

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    This article provides the reader with five examples of civil disobedience. I think most people think about Rosa Parks and Gandhi when they think about civil disobedience but there's a long history, that continues today, of people practicing this method. It's important to recognize how powerful it can be. Gandhi's "Salt March" and industrial workers' sit-ins are two examples shared in this article. Civil disobedience is deeply woven into many cultures, not just our own. Civil disobedience can be expressed by the sheer presence of someone in a place that they don't belong, which we saw with Ms. Parks, which was also the case with the students who sat at the lunch counter and demanded to be served.
Alexa Mason

the Montgomery boycott - 1 views

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    This is a powerful website. It presents the reader with biographies, images and archives of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which Rosa Parks served as the catalyst for. This website tells the stories of a portion of the hundreds of other people involved in this movement. Rosa Parks is often dubbed as the mother of civil rights but there are many others who were involved and very seldom are they talked about. This website shares the voices of people who were there in the midst of it and people who were affected, such as children sharing memories of deceased parents. There are video clips and articles, it's really a treasure.
Alexa Mason

Rosa Parks ignites bus boycot - History.com This Day in History - 12/1/1955 - 0 views

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    This website provides more context and background to the infamous moment on the Montgomery bus captured in the initial image shown. The lore states that Parks refused to give up the seat because her feet were tired after a long day of working but in reality, she was aware of plans of local activists to challenge the bus laws. Her arrest propelled the civil rights movement forward and resulted in a year long bus boycott. This website presents Rosa Parks angle differently than most others tend to. It's interesting to see her described as a part of the movement as opposed to someone who just happened to be somewhere.
Alexa Mason

The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow. A Century of Segregation | PBS - 2 views

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    This webpage is presented by PBS. It is a part of series produced by the organization. This webpage is not explicitly about Rosa Parks but it is still very relevant. This webpage presents "A Century of Segregation". It provides incredible background information about the history of our country and monumental events that occurred prior to Rosa Parks and the subsequent bus boycotts. The tabs are presented on a timeline and each tab, when clicked, provides more information such as "March on Washington", "Ku Klux Klan" and "Jackie Robinson". It's important to look at such historical events within a historical context because very seldom are these events isolated.
Alexa Mason

Rosa Parks Was Arrested for Civil Disobedience, December 1, 1955 - Jump Back in Time | ... - 0 views

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    This website presents a brief of overview of Rosa Parks historical arrest. During the civil rights movement Ms. Parks chose to sit in a seat on the bus that was not designated for black people. She chose to practice civil disobedience and assert what she felt was her right to be seated wherever she pleased. This website provides another image related to the initial class image, it is an image of her being booked for the crime that she committed. There is a lot to the story and this website gives information about what happened after that moment on the bus.
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