Dixon Shapiro: Exploration 7

In this documentary, I learned that people in general have a very difficult time changing their viewpoints of the world, viewpoints that they were raised with, and were told that these are the only viewpoints someone can have. These people also have a very hard time adapting to change. In today's world, we can compare it to how gay and lesbian people are treated, along with how some people's viewpoints on Syrians is that they are all terrorists.

Even today, it is very hard for people to admit that they were wrong, and that something must change in our society. Diane Nash asked Mayor Ben West if he thought that it was wrong to discriminate people based on color, and when he was asked what he thought of that question latter on, he said, "I tried as best I could to answer it frankly and honestly, that I could not agree that it was morally right for someone to sell them merchandise and refuse them service. And I had to answer it just exactly that way.” It is very hard to find someone who would be willing to openly admit that their viewpoints should change, and that they were wrong about their original ideas, especially if they are in politics. The question that Diane Nash asked the Mayor can also be used today for some politicians, but instead of asking about color, it could be used to ask about gays and lesbians. To me. the most shocking thing is what people will do to stop these changes in society. For example, Burke Marshall said about the attack on the Freedom Riders in Birmingham, "they clearly had advance information from Klan sources that the Freedom Riders were going to be attacked in the bus station at Birmingham ... The Bureau didn't pass that information along to anybody in any other part of the department." I do not know myself if something similar happened recently with a gay and lesbian movement, but if it did and the FBI covered it up, it would have caused a great outrage among the population.

One of the tactics used to promote anti-segregation was the boycotting of stores that promoted segregation in Nashville, Tennessee, and the surrounding area. This idea was used by a lot of the parents of the children that were arrested, to fight against it. They thought that since the black community were a big portion of income for these stores (their buying power was about $10 million for these stores alone, as mentioned in the documentary), and if they boycotted, these stores would feel a lot of pressure, and that in turn would pressure the Mayor to change the political nature of the city. In the documentary, it was said that this tactic was almost completely effective, to the point that some people became more and more aware of how serious the situation was, and that they must consider that they needed to change their ways.