Martin Luther King Research Paper

Words: 768
Pages: 4

Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech is one of the most famous speeches made on the segregation that still existed in America almost a century after the abolishment of slavery during the Civil War. There are many movies about the Civil Rights Movement including Remember the Titans, during the integration of white and african american schools and the barriers that students of both schools faced in a newly unified football team. Although it is based on a true story, there are many events that are made up or exaggerated, but it accurately shows the problems in the postwar South where segregation was the norm and incorporates many issues that the Civil Rights Movement fought for. The idea of segregation was first legalized in Plessy v. …show more content…
Board of Education outlawed segregation in public schools, segregation in the public was not entirely outlawed and there were still many instances of violence and racism that was prevalent in the South. An example of this is the attitude of Gerry Bertier’s girlfriend, Emma has toward Gerry befriending all the black players and eventually breaks up with him when he continues to hang out with them. Another instance is after one of the Titan’s football victory, the whole team goes out to celebrate and when Ronnie Bass, Petey Jones and Louie Lastik go into a restaurant to celebrate, they are denied service because of the color of their skin. Even though the schools may have been integrated, there were still lots of people like Emma and the restaurant shop owner who discriminated against African Americans. In addition to discrimination through nonviolent ways, there were other groups that protested against desegregation and equality in more violent ways. In the movie, someone throws a brick through Coach Boone’s home and another person calls him Coach Coone. This scene is significant and represents the violence that groups such as the Ku Klux Klan used in order to intimidate other African Americans. Because Coach Boone was hired as part of the integration of three separate public schools, there were many people such as the school board that were not happy and the brick that was thrown into his house represents the violence people used to scare other African Americans into quietly