OWS Example & Civil Rights Text

OWS: The Resistance Continues

Civil Rights Example & Text

Download Soundslides exercise files!!

Civil rights example:

Martin Luther King – “I Have a Dream” (August 1963)

Barack Obama – “More Perfect Union (March 2008)

John Fitzgerald Kennedy – Civil Rights Address (June 1963)

Malcolm X – By Any Means Necessary (1965)

Elements of one possible combination:

Music: We Shall Overcome

MLK
(2:30-3:07 of MLK clip) When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

JFK
(1:10-2:30 of JFK clip) Today, we are committed to a worldwide struggle to promote and protect the rights of all who wish to be free. And when Americans are sent to Vietnam or West Berlin, we do not ask for whites only. It ought to be possible, therefore, for American students of any color to attend any public institution they select without having to be backed up by troops.

Music: “This little light of mine.”

Obama
(10:35-12:05 of Obama clip) People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world.

Music: “We are not alone”

Malcom X
(Entire Malcolm X clip) We want one thing. We declare our right on this earth to be a man, to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights as a human being, in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring about into existence by any means necessary.

MLK
(11:05-12:45 of MLK clip) I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!