I’m just getting this post up because I didn’t have time to
work on it while I watched that very intense, amazing and crazy Iowa State men’s
basketball game last night! Anyways, I attended the diversity event “Freedom
Riders: Documentary and Discussion” last night in the South Ballroom of the
Memorial Union. The event lasted a total of about an hour and a half and
contained a great video to start the lecture and also contained a good discussion
at the end of the lecture. I did not catch the lecturer’s name because I came
in a little bit late but he was a historian who was going to have a discussion
about the “Freedom Riders” and their journey through the south to test the
United States civil rights policies. The ride lasted several weeks and was
meant to be a nonviolent experience for these “Freedom Riders”, however this is
not how their ride turned out. When the first group reached Alabama they were
approached and beaten by a group of white men. After that incident a second
group attempted to continue this trip through the south to New Orleans. This
trip forced the federal government to enforce its regulations with far greater
regulation after further violence was seen. The presenter explained the rest of
the video and continued on to a discussion of the video.
I thought this event was pretty repetitive because I had
previously learned this information during my high school history course. However,
the discussion following the video about the “Freedom Riders” was very helpful
to understand different people’s views of how these events have impacted the
United States history. We also discussed how these events did not happen that
long ago and how they are not as much of a problem in the United States
anymore.
A question that I still have is how much of a problem is
still seen with people in the United States? I still think that this issue has
not been entirely taken out of some peoples past so I would like to know how prevalent
this issue still is in the United States.
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