Historical Cultural Analysis
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The political, economic, and social reality of slavery in U.S. history was in the background of atrocities against African Americans. It was particularly true prior to the Civil Rights Movement and the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. Even though the Civil War ended and Lincoln freed the slaves, racism, prejudice, segregation and violence toward Blacks continued unabated well into the mid-20th century in American society. More remarkable, perhaps, is that attitudes informing overt racist atrocities may not have necessarily shifted over the course of the 20th century; the phrase hate crime is a contemporary one. On the other hand, American popular culture, informed by the lessons of the Civil Rights Movement, has demonstrated and even celebrated the gradually increasing access by minorities, particularly African Americans, to mainstream social goods in a way that has made overt expression of racism carry social costs. The purpose of this research is to explore how films as representative artifacts of mainstream popular culture has fed and been fed by the evolution of civil rights in the U.S.The evolution of civil rights legislation and of the culture into which it was inserted must have seemed highly unlikely in the first part of the 20th century. Civil rights as a concept seems to have been nothing if not arcane in an America where what can now be seen as shocking statistics went largely unremarked:
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a decade after the successful Montgomery bus boycott of 1957 under Dr. King's leadership launched the movement's most effective era, both Blacks and the Whites who supported them were still being subjected to violent atrocities. The persistent and programmatic torching of Negro churches--not just one or two but dozens and dozens--that is the dominant visual image of the film resonates with 1943 Detroit and the because it portrays the deliberate targeting of blacks for what amounts to eradication from the culture, together with the inefficacy and sloth of law enforcement with respect to enforcing fundamental Constitutional protections for persecuted minorities. The subplot of the woman whose politically and socially retrograde sheriff husband is also a KKK leader and who cannot escape a wretched marriage also highlights the powerlessness of all except the white-supremacy cadre and the social costs of considering blacks to be human.
At the same time, however, Mississippi Burning portrays the tipping point of the American Civil Rights Movement and perhaps a tipping point of American popular culture more generally. That is because, as the film spins the tale, the murders of the three civil rights workers (fictionalized versions of Go
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Approximate Word count = 2908
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)
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