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Obama’s win on US civil rights movement

January 18th, 2009 by MP (Athens, Greece) · No Comments

A very popular slogan in the USA just before the historic elections was the following: “Rosa Parks sat, so Martin Luther King could walk, so Barack Obama could run, so we could fly.” IMG_2270That saying describes as few the history of the civil rights movement in the United States and the meaning of Obama’s presidential win.  Martin Luther King tried to break the chains of racism in a divided America. He started his struggle in 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. At that time, most of the American South was divided, black and white were doomed to live separately from birth to death. Martin Luther King fought against all odds, he wanted America to get rid of its white hood. He paid the price. He was assassinated, in 1968.IMG_2272Yes we can…Yes we can….chanted thousands of Obama’s supporters. Yes, African Americans can now have high expectations, yes they have role models, yes their ambitions can become a reality. During his campaign, Barack Obama refused to be seen as a «black candidate». His victory, however, is a milestone for the Aferican American community because it gave the civil rights movement the moral justification it was looking for, so many decades.Free at last”. Today, Martin Luther King’s words echo louder than ever…. For millions of African-Americans, Obama’s victory is not symbolising the victory of one person, but the victory of hope and opportunity. The 4th of November will stay in history as the day in which the African American community believed that everything is possible.    

Tags: History · Photo · Politics · Society

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