The Deep South is different than any other place I have experienced. I thought I got the most authentic tourist experience possible.

     Highlighting the trip was the Selma talk with history makers and the boys and girls club. Both were two worlds and experiences that will change my everyday thoughts. One of the youth workers at the boys and girls club told me “seven dollars is the minimum wage” and then said something along the lines of go to university or college and then you can make 11.25$ per hour and live well. That is just an example that allows to gain more perspective of the world I live in.

     Something else I really enjoyed about the trip was aspect of Walking in the footsteps of history. From ATL to Nashville I stood in places where action and words changed the world. The Birthplace of  MLK and the Ebenezer Church were powerful moments to me. I would also like to comment on the perspective I have gained about the positive influence of religion. I am not religious myself but my parents and a large portion of my extended family are associated with Christianity. So the Ebenezer church did have meaning to me because of my surroundings. I also really like the line of the lady who led us around the church in Montgomery “Everybody is a piece in a puzzle” she portrayed the  ability the church had to unify people towards a common goal. Even though this religious part wasn’t an intended learning outcome of the trip I put it at one of the utmost importance. Religion is the cause of many conflicts something I would like to understand and comprehend people’s motives. In the case of the civil rights movement it allowed people to come together and fight for equality which I don’t think would’ve happened without religion.

     Next the music portion which was just plain cool. I don’t listen to a lot of music and am not to into a lot of the genres we explored but I guarantee it will be something I look back and say “I watched a Grand Ole Opry show” and it was clearly rich with history but it’s just something I couldn’t really appreciate.

      One more thing I almost forgot to to mention was how fun the trip was. Segway Tour, Aquarium, World of Coke road trips and chicken so much chicken was amazingly enjoyable. This trip was one of the best experiences in my life and one I will never forget.

The Lorraine Motel is monumental and the pinnacle location of the civil rights movement. The death place of MLK and the birthplace of the National Civil Rights museum. That is all fine and dandy but I wanted to look at a topic that’s not often discussed and that is the business side of the Lorraine. The Lorraine was owned by a black man by the name of Walter Baily and he served both black and white people which made the hotel very successful as it had a larger base of consumers. That idea of serving both black and white people made a lot of sense economically that’s why many shop owners didn’t mind the civil rights act of 1964 as it gave store owners an excuse to being able to serve both black and white people. In the grand scheme of things this means more then some extra twenties for the owner it allowed for pro segregationist to loosen their view on segregation. It gave them a reason to prefer breaking the color barriers and adopting a economically richer way of life. This is a very interesting way of looking at the civil rights movement behind a money point of view. This angle on the civil rights is something that can’t be underestimated as money talks. I will always have to look through the money glasses any time I took at civil rights event from now on.

This is part 3 of my podcast series the finale. I picked my BF (Pink Shirt) to help narrate this podcast with me and tried a more conversational style of podcast. Enjoy!

Lyndon Baines Johnson was a very interesting character to research especially in the context of the Civil Rights Movement. He was born in Texas a southern state so you would think he would be pro segregation but his religious belief steered him towards acceptance, one of his favorite bible quotes “Come now, and let us reason together …” described his approach to civil rights perfectly. Another surprising and interesting thing was how fast he acted to push for progress in civil rights after Kennedy’s death it didn’t take Johnson no time to begin working on progress. If I was in his position I would be a lot more hesitant than him, I probably wouldn’t have gone all in on the civil rights like he did. It worked out very well for him early on when he passed the civil rights act of 1964 and won the next election by a landslide. When his balls to the walls approach began to fade with civil rights so did his popularity. LBJ was a lot more resistant to sign the equal voting act of 1965. I know the Vietnam controversy also led to declining popularity but his civil rights approach probably didn’t help. LBJ has been the most interesting character to me so far in my Civil Rights research followed by RFK  as they both showed that human decency was still alive and people respected that, it’s a silver lining of the Civil Rights Movement.

             Why is it so important in the civil rights movement? It speed things up, with out it civil rights would still be a problem today. Brown vs Board of education was arguably the first domino to fall and it took 6 court rulings to do so. The next domino to fall a year later the montgomery bus boycott took a lot of resources as well. The domino effect really start to take control and influence the masses with lunch counter sit ins and freedom riders from all across the country protesting inequality. Everyday people got swept up in the wave of the desire for equality and all this passion came together on one day the the march on Washington in 1963 where Martin Luther King Jr. knew the domino effect would not last forever “it would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment.” Martin Luther King Jr. he used that momentum to excel the agenda bringing the civil rights act of 1964 to be passed. With the help of the domino effect the black community went from 2nd class citizens and the tragic death of Emmett Till in 1955 to 1st class citizens by law in under ten years.

I whole heartily agree with this theory and doing all this research has really opened my eyes on the power of momentum.

I collaborated with my class mate Nash on this this explain everything project on how the right to vote went from a privilege to a right.

https://youtu.be/jraBEwsnK_U
The first step to making the project was getting the information. In class we learned about different ethnicity’s in Canada and when they were franchised and why.
After we got the information we had to get an idea for the project. We thought to bring you through the times using me and Nash’s dialogue to present stats and ideas on the right to vote in Canada. Our answer for the question was through social movements the government was put in to an awkward position forcing them to franchise all minority groups. 
When we look back at our project we were able to make a somewhat interesting intro but needed more work on our explain everything to make this a great project. The ideas are good but execution could of been better. I am overall happy with the project and might use this format again of going back in time and explain what’s going on using dialogue between two people. 

Zakaria and I have created a poem about Anakin Skywalker. We created this 3 stanza poem as a parody of the She Walks in Beauty by Lord Byron. We changed most of the nouns and adjectives in the poem and kept the general structure of the poem the same. We constructed each stanza to emulate one movie within Anakin’s story. We made reference about his action and changing mood through out the three movies. Here is the original poem, parody poem and the movie.

Original

“She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow’d to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had impair’d the nameless grace.
Which waves in every raven trees,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

George Gordon, Lord Byron

Parody

“He walks in proudly, like a knight
Of pod racers and Jedi life;
And the only hope left for the side of light
Meets in his hand and jedi knife
Thus committed to the only right
Which sith to gaudy day denies.

One clone the more, one droid the less,
Had impair’d the silent peace.
Which means in Naboo’s mess,
Or secret life o’er her mouth piece;
Where tuskens serenely lied motionless
How soon, how close his sanity decrease.

And on that cheek and o’er that lip
So soft, so calm, yet pregnant,
The smiles that were, yet the tables flip,
Now tell of days of the Sith regnant,
A mind at war with himself and friends,
A heart whose love has met a fateful end.

George Gordon, Lord Byron

https://youtu.be/CbSaR0gmOQQ

In a galaxy far far away there was student by the name of Chris Ross created a stop motion Star Wars film. I created a stop motion to answer my driving question for my blue sky project. 

  
This is the criteria for the project but we had to put a Star Wars spin on it.
  Using simple materials can I portray the emotion and feel of the Star Wars scene I am trying to re and act? With out accesses to awesome visual effects can I use other tools(audio) to make my video have the same feel as the real scene? My video answers this question and also shows how I made it. 

http://youtu.be/Lw1qZ4PgpFw
What I learned from doing this project is how hard a hand drawn stop motion is to create. 
I also learned that good audio can really enhance a videos mood so much so that I would say it is more important then what is put on screen. The mood of a scene is really determined by the audio and you can really see this in this video made by blank. This video was shown to us by my teachers before we started the project so that is where I got my inspiration from. So that lesson of how a boom and whistle are essential to making a video into an immersive scene is the most important lesson I will take away from this project. 

Start of the Year http://www.blog44.ca/christopherr/2014/11/29/finger-fetcher/

Middle of the Year http://www.blog44.ca/christopherr/2015/04/22/what-effects-does-patriotism-have/

End of the Year http://www.blog44.ca/christopherr/2015/06/12/metaphor-machine-that-kinda-works/

What I am most proud of http://www.blog44.ca/christopherr/2015/06/23/blue-sky-finished-casino-kings/

Reviewing my goals http://www.blog44.ca/christopherr/2015/01/19/slc-goals/