Different Point of View

I was born a Yankee. I was taught a lot about the Civil war in Highschool, but we rarely touched on the Civil Rights era. When we did, it was the basic things, such as Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, etc. We read some stories but they were always about the Civil Rights as a whole. Perhaps this is why I really enjoyed reading stories that focus on a specific area/city. I learned a lot about Greensboro in Chafe’s Civility and Civil Rights. I really enjoyed reading about the trials and demonstrations of all the students in Greensboro. Compared to where I’m from Greensboro is much more diverse. This story was definitely a great insight for me to see what it was like to go through this time from the south’s point of view, and not from the north’s. I really enjoyed some of the quotes that Chafe included in his presentation. The first that really stuck out to me was that an observer noted the 1960’s stage of freedom movement was like the Greensboro “coffee party” of 1960. I don’t think that the students that started the sit in demonstrations knew how big of a movement they were starting. In Chafe’s reading he talked about how these four students had the courage and the pain of the pioneers that had started other movements in the past. I also enjoyed learning a little bit about all of the four original sit ins , and how three of the four original sit ins grew up in the Greensboro area. Perhaps the most influential detail to this story that inspired me the most was that Ezell Blair Jr., noted that “as college students we have no jobs from which to be fired by people who don’t like to see us assert ourselves…We can speak up loudly now without fear of economic reprisal.” As college design students I feel we have a responsibility to fight for a change in this world. Whether it be enforcing Recycling at our school, or speaking up for something else you believe in. Now is the time when we’re discovering who we really are and what we truly believe in. It takes courage to grow up and see who you really are.
I read the story after already taking a bus route. The reading did not influence the pictures I took on my route but it did influence the pictures I chose to display. I wanted to pick ones that would influence some of the things read or said in this story. I took the route on Friendly ave. so since I have been there before I tried to pay attention to things that have always stuck out to me. I also paid attention to the people on my bus, however their were really only me and two other people for the mile I road, so it wasn’t very interesting. This was not my first time riding a city bus, this bus ride was definitely not as eventful as riding the Miami city bus at 1 am in the morning. Below are 7 images that I chose to represent my experience riding the bus and also that were influenced from some of the images presented in the reading.