Civil Rights Revealed In Book One Of March

Laws are set in place to protect what is socially just. Without laws, justice is no longer protected and without justice, society falls to the hands of darkness. This was a battle being fought during the Civil Rights era between people of color and those opposed to them. Whether the “unlawful assembly” laws were used to suppress African Americans or whether those people involved in protesting for civil rights were breaking laws by doing so, they were suppressed unlawfully time and time again by opposing forces. This is shown in Book One of March, written by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin, during the protest from Selma to Montgomery (known as Bloody Sunday), in Book Two of March during a protest with almost a thousand of Birmingham's children,

The Declaration of Independence states that all men are created equal. That is the foundation of our country and yet less than one percent of African Americans were registered to vote during the Civil Rights era. A total of three attempts were made to try to get the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The first two resulted in chaos and brutality by the local and state authorities and only when the National Guard was called in, by President Johnson, were the marchers ensured safety across the bridge. Some would say that this was an “unlawful assembly” and that everyone participating should be forced to disperse because they had no permit. Dr. King would likely disagree. When writing The Letter from Birmingham Jail he said, “Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest” (King). The regulations regarding assembly is decided by the local and state ordinances, however the Constitution is the supreme law that overrules any and all state governance. The first amendment states, “Congress shall make no law... prohibiting the...right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” (Constitute). Despite the fact that this may have been an “unlawful assembly” according to state laws, the prime law that governs all others proves that the right to assemble peacefully is lawful. The intent of the march was to peacefully show the country how unjust African Americans were being treated. The result