In no particular order, some things come to mind, the bus boycott in Montgomery, the sit-in movement in Nashville, the de-segregation of schools in the deep south, so many things so very hard won. But once the prize was won, once all people became equal, what happened? In the words of a former and current Civil Rights activist, "we won, we had a picnic and went home."
There has been no honoring the victories won, no maintenance of civil rights earned, when the bus boycott was won, Montgomery reacted by over time shutting down the bus lines that served blacks, opening them only on the anniversary of the bus boycott.
The desegregated schools stayed desegregated, until whites opened expensive private schools that only privileged whites could attend. Public schools became for the poor and black, without proper funding and support.
SNCC won the right to sit at lunch counters with whites, but the memorial to their efforts is now faded, rundown and ignored, funding pulled by the city of Nashville, to hide that chapter in history. The statue honoring the slaves brought across the ocean is behind bars, where people can't learn from it or enjoy it, because it is so often a target of vandalism.
In the Delta region of Mississippi, slaves were brought out of the quarters to become sharecroppers, then brought into town, to live in row houses, working barely paying jobs, still scratching at poverty. Without hope, without ideas or education to create a brighter future. Corporate farms have purchased the available farmland, hiring those that would work the land at poverty wages. There is no spark brought about by education, no concept of change, and no hope. There are no community gardens, no farmer's market, the Delta region is a food desert.
