How activism has changed throughout the years.
Inequality and discrimination, as well as protest and activism, have been constants in this country for centuries. From the protests for the Civil Rights Movement to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, revolution has been a staple in the US against oppression. One thing that is common throughout all of these protests, revolutions, and uprisings is change younger generations are able to pioneer.
During the peak of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, teens and young adults alike decided to join the cause. They would participate in the marches, as well as the imprisonments. At times, even elementary school students were compelled to join the movement. Freeman Hrabowski, a civil rights activist, said in an interview that he was about 12 years old when he was inspired to join the movement. He became a part of the Birmingham Children’s Crusade of 1963. Due to his powerful advocacy, he ended up being arrested. At the prison, Martin Luther King Jr. told him, “What you do this day will have an impact on children yet unborn.”
Oftentimes, elders in their families, as well as figureheads of the movement, would inspire more of the youth to go out and fight for their rights. Joyce Ladner, another civil rights activist, stated, “The Movement was the most exciting thing that one could engage in. I often say that, in fact, I coined the term, the ‘Emmett Till generation.’ I said that there was no more exciting time to have been born at the time and the place and to the parents that movement, young movement, people were born to… I remember so clearly Uncle Archie who was in World War I, went to France, and he always told us, ‘Your generation is going to change things.’ The strong and powerful voice of the American youth can be seen translated to today as well.”
In 2012, when the unfair death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman devastated many, marking the beginnings of the BLM movement. Patrisse Cullors, one of the founders of the movement, wrote “When Trayvon Martin was killed in 2012, and in 2013, when George Zimmerman was acquitted, my body and spirit moved to action.” As the pressing issue of police brutality against black people became more visible to the public eye, more of the youth began to become a part of the revolutionary movement. Many teenage activists took to the streets of Chicago after the murders of Alton Sterling and Philando Castille. Protest has been a quintessential form of resistance against systemic oppression. This is clear when we look back at the 50s and 60s, but it is also clear in 2012 and 2020.