The Civil Rights Movement: What Good Was it?

By Alice Walker

Alice Walker

Alice Walker was an American black writer, famous for The Color Purple (1983), her third novel. Her essay “The Civil Rights Movement: What Good Was It?” won the first prize in the annual American Scholar essay contest in 1967.

Civil Rights Movement

It refers to the U.S. mass movement starting in the late 1950s. It began on December 1, 1955, when Rosa Parks, a black woman, was arrested for refusing to move to the Negro Section of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. The black there began to boycott (联合抵制 ) the city’s bus system to protest her arrest. Under the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr., the boycott became a massive resistance. As a result, the civil rights movement broke the pattern of racially segregated（隔离） public facilities such as buses. The progress also spread to the field of legislation（立法） and the black got certain equal rights. The movement began to decline in the late 1960s.

Civil Rights Movement

Before the Civil Rights Movement, the black were segregated in public places. For instance, there were separate drinking fountains for whites and blacks, “colored balconies” in movie theatres, and the segregated seats in the back of the bus. In the short life of Martin Luther King, he struggled to change these conditions, and to win equal protection under the law for citizens of all races.

Martin Luther King

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a black Baptist（基督教浸信会） minister, who became the leader of the Civil Rights Movement. His fame was established through the organization of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the advancement of nonviolent protest actions such as the massive march on Washington in 1963. He won Nobel Prize for Peace in the following year. He was assassinated in 1968. After his death, the Civil Rights Movement began to decline.

Alabama

Text Organization

Part 1: A general Introduction: How the change came.

Part 2: Mother’s feeling as an example of Blacks’ being unaware of their existence.

Part 3: How life was changed by the Civil Rights Movement.

Text Organization

Part I (Paras. 1-2) The author gives a brief introduction to the transitional moment in her life, which marked her being awakened to life.

Part II (Paras. 3-5) The author recalls the soap operas that her mother enjoyed watching and how she felt lost when comparing her own life with the heroines, often white people, rich and pretty. Actually, this expresses the author’s confused feelings about her own identity as a black.

Part III (Paras. 6-10) The author tells about the appearance of Martin Luther King, Jr. on TV and how his belief and promises changed her life.

Part I (Paras. 1-2)

How life was like before I realize my existence?

Can you paraphrase it? Paralyzed-motionless: There is nothing

we can do to change the situation. Dread- fear

Part I (Paras. 1-2)

What does the author mean when he say, “I began to be alive”?

How did the author see the relationship between the outer world and his skin color?

How do you understand “as a statistic exists,or as a phantom”?

Part II (Paras. 3-5)

How was the white’s life like? How did my mother feel when she saw

the movies? What does “a tragic look of surprise”

imply? What does “she subordinated her soul

to theirs” mean? What does “nobody” mean?

Part II (Paras. 3-5) Comparison and Contrast her mother’s daydream: one of the white

people, pretty, rich, hair turned blond, a sleek size-seven dress, her rough dark skin smooth and white; her husband became “dark and handsome,” talented, witty, urbane, charming

Reality: She sat in the only comfortable chair, resting her swollen feet and heavy body while her husband sitting near her wore his sweat shirt and raised his smelly feet on the bed to “air.”

Part III (Paras. 6-10)

What is “something more” in Line 69? Paraphrase the sentences.

Parallel Structures –the device to highlight the relation or contrast between elements

What Dr. King promised was not..—but.. He did not promise… ---but… He did not say…or…what he said was… We had a right to…and a right to… He did not say…---but he did say… Because of…,because of…,because of…, I

have… How do you understand the last sentence in

Para. 8?

Parallel Structures

What I am now --- what I was then It is being capable to..It is being able to It means being aware…it means being

a part, and being alert. To know is to exist: to exist is to be

involved…

Comparison and Contrast --changes of Alice Walker Before and after the Civil Rights Movement Before: Living in a narrow world, the life

resembled death, not sure whether she existed, skin color preventing her from realizing her dreams

After: awakened to life, knowing that she had a chance to be herself, really existed.