Ain't Scared of Your Jails

I thought this movie was really interesting, and although I have heard of nonviolent protest, I had no idea how well organized and how incredibly intelligent and strategic it actually was. They knew how to act in ways the would hurt local government, which would hurt state government and on and on up the line. In the film Leo Lillard says, 

"Someone developed the idea of, "Let's stop spending money downtown." And basically it was like the bus boycott. "Let's stop supporting the system we're trying to change." The bus boycott in Nashville, primarily focused on the Nashville downtown stores, the Nashville retail merchants. We figured that if they would feel the pinch of not having shoppers buy in the stores downtown Nashville, then that will put pressure on the mayor, on the political fabric of town, of Nashville, to change the rules, the regulations."

 Similar to Fredrick Douglass in the late 1800's the blacks used their intelligence and strategy to prove to the bigoted whites of the south that they were of equal importance, and equal intelligence. The boycotters and freedom riders were there to prove that they were part of the same human race that the whites were. 

It is incredible that essentially one group of people could spread a movement across a country that could transform the way a government writes law. If there is one thing that we can learn from this video, it should be that, it is an amazing democracy we live in, where free speech and our power to demonstrate protest can ignite a wave of change throughout the entire nation. If there is something that is important to us we have the right to speak out about it, and that is exceptionally fortunate, compared to other countries in the world.