The Importance of a Symbol

The Civil Rights Movement is brought to the front of American citizen’s minds during the same time each year: Black History Month. Black History Month is great for a number of reasons, but I’m not going to focus on any of them. I want to focus on how BHM leads to problematic situations. For example, as soon as March comes along, people forget about Martin Luther King Jr. or the Civil Rights Movement almost immediately. It becomes almost a thing that only matters in February. People might post a picture of King with a caption that shows their gratitude, but this has become a sort of measurement of how much the movement meant to you and the question of if you really care or not surfaces if you do not show your appreciation on social media. It’s almost become something to check off of a list: smiled today – check! took the trash out – check! posted a picture of King on Instagram – check! But that is where it ends. There is no further talk about King or all the other influential figures of the Civil Rights Movement.  Once the picture is posted, you have done your part! Who needs to remember the brutalities that some people faced? Or the other influential figures of the movement? If there is any talk, it is about how great of a leader King was, making it seem as if without him there would be no Civil Rights Movement.

This is also something that could be improved upon. Most people only talk about King without mentioning people like Ella Baker or Ralph Abernathy. I think this comes from the fact that King was the symbol of the Civil Rights Movement, in the same way that Katniss was the symbol of the revolution in the Hunger Games trilogy. King, like Katniss, was the face of the movement, but there were many others working behind the scenes. These other people are not given the attention that they deserve. However, becoming the symbol of a movement is a huge task; you become the face of the operation: when things go well you are praised, when things go wrong you get blamed. Is this fair?  

Like most others, I learned the master narrative growing up, and it wasn’t until this class that I learned the real story. We should not have to rely on a class to know more about the Civil Rights Movement or MLK as a person, especially here at Rhodes since we are located in Memphis. We need to be aware of what really happened, but how do we get there?