“I hope you will not sell your birthright of freedom for a mess of segregated pottage. Nothing is more sublime than suffering and sacrifice for a great cause. But there can be no growth without pain.” These words from Martin Luther King Junior epitomized the struggle of black members of society during the Prince Edward County schooling crisis. Even after the court’s decision in 1959 to outlaw segregation, the white schools were not compelled to change their institutions, but rather to close them down to even further impede the black population’s access to educational resources. They closed their public schools for 5 years, launching the community into an educational crisis and forcing them to migrate outward. Because many of the older generation of the black community did not have formal educations or resources, they could not educate their children on their own, and they could hardly afford to send them elsewhere to school. For those that could, migrating to other communities was the next step to get education. But the others, who either could not afford the travel or demanded to post up in Prince Edward County for protest, had to suffer the consequences of no educational opportunities. At one point, the Negro’s were offered a chance to attend a separate black private school, which would give them a chance at education but would ultimately curtail their long-fought goal of desegregation. White leaders of schools were increasingly irritated by the continued demand for better facilities or more equal treatment, but as their “intransigence” grew, so did the determination of the black population.

After seeing the hardships that Prince Edward County black citizens were facing, it is clear why Martin Luther King’s statement is so provoking. His reference to the Biblical story of Jacob and Esau is a perfect representation of the decision that they all had to face. In the book of Genesis, Esau has just returned home and is faced with severe hunger to the point of bodily pain. His brother and adversary, Jacob, offers him soup, a temporary relief for what he feels like he readily needs, to satiate his hunger. In order for him to obtain the soup from Jacob, he has to give up his birthright to him, which was Esau’s personal right given to him at birth for the riches of his father. Paralleling that story, if the Negro’s of Prince Edward County were to accept the white leaders’ substandard offers of separate schools during the time which they were the most starved of education, then they would ultimately give up their dreams and rights of having integrated schooling and a better education for their children. Indeed, they had to suffer through momentary pain in order to see growth.

-What do you think would have happened if the Prince Edward County black members had settled for the separate schooling in order for their kids to have any education at all in the midst of the school closing crisis?

-The reverend Martin Luther King Jr. often refers to Jesus Christ’s supreme sacrifice when encouraging the suffering and eventual victory of the black citizens. I am curious what you all think about the Biblical rhetoric he uses. What is the importance of Jesus Christ and religion to the people and their morale? How does the emulation of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice translate into their fight for equality?

In Chapter 9, entitled “The Policy Connection,” Meyer describes the reciprocal relationship of policy and protest. He showed how activists respond to government policy in many situations, and inversely how policy addresses the disruption that mobilization causes in others.The two examples he used to demonstrate both sides of the democratic connection between policy and protest were the Bonus Bill movement and the antiwar movement against Vietnam.

The Bonus March movement involved a series of marches and demonstrations from veterans who had been displaced from World War I. They were desperate for work and the government had only promised a measly $1,000 service bonus to each of them. The Veterans were fighting to pass a bill called the Bonus Bill which would offer them much more money and support. When the veterans’ encampment and marches failed to convince government to pass the bill, the marchers extended their cause to a wider audience to include many more people who were in need. When relief for more people became the focus, and the movement grew larger and unavoidable, Roosevelt eventually passed the bill in response to their grievances. This is a fine example of policy responding to protest. In the other example, the antiwar movement in the 1960s, the movement was a direct response to policy that was passed. There had already been growing hatred for Nixon’s use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam, but after he passed a policy which extended the draft to eighteen-year-olds, a new movement erupted. This example shows the other side of the relationship in which a group was given a reason to join other groups who already opposed the war; it was protest in response to policy.

In this chapter, Meyer asserted that changes in policy are usually incremental by way of marginal adjustments. So, although he has given instances in which policy has changed due to protest, the outcome is certainly not always in the favor of the activists. Not only is policy change too slow to be satisfactory to the urgent concerns of activists, but it often does not change enough to accomplish the end goals of the movement. He had an interesting quote saying, “There is a mismatch between political rhetoric that emphasizes absolutes and a political process that prizes compromise and incrementalism” (Meyer 177). Our governmental system will never meet all the expectations and address all the grievances of a movement, so people will always experience some sort of disappointment. This reminded me of Barbara Ransby at her lecture about MLK Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement. She said that if Ella Baker and MLK Jr. were here today, they would be pleased with progress, but they would not feel like their goals had been reached. There is always more work to be done.

“At what point can movements claim victory? Is there ever at point at which they can say that they have won, even when there is always more work to be done? Even if policy does not change in response to a movement, can the visibility of new issues be enough to satisfy the constituents?”