Journal#17 Peaceful Protests

Protesting is a good alternative to an all out riot. Riots generally do not accomplish much and many people can usually end up dead and hurt. For instance, in the Middle East, Israeli officials visited a muslim temple and the muslims got very angry over this. So, their reaction was to start massive riots throughout the city and the Israelis had to call out the police to fend off the rioters. To the rest of the world, this riot showed unrest in the nations and was not viewed in very high esteem. This riot accomplished nothing except to make things worse and to cause even more political tensions between Isareal and the rest of the Arab world.

A better solution to this would have been to just let the whole thing go, not start a massive riot that accomplished nothing. Martin Luther King Jr was an expert in peaceful protesting. He organized countless protests and he did not advocate violence. He knew that if the blacks fought with the whites it would make tensions worse and everything would fall apart, violence would not achieve civil rights. King even spoke out against groups such as the Black Panthers who used violence because he did not like the thought of fighting. He knew that if the blacks kept peacfully protesting then eventually the whites would not have anything to use against them because the blacks were not being violent. He understood the importance of peaceful protesting and how much more effective it can be compared to violence.

However, sometimes ou have to put the peace dove aside and call out the war hawk. When things get ugly, and you can't talk your way out of it, you will have to gear up and send in the troops. Such as when the Little Rock Nine were attending school and the rioting crowds blocked them out. President Lyndon B. Johnson called in the National Gaurd and the troops kept the protesters at bay. The Little Rock Nine were able to attend school with the white kids and this helped to de-segregate the pulic school systems in the south.