OP-ED: It’s time for a new civil rights movement in America
By: Trey Avant
Tags: Protest, Black Lives Mater, Tsr, Trey Avant

Photo by Nicole Baster on Unsplash

In August of 1619, English colonizers brought Africans to Jamestown, Virginia. These Africans became the first of an enslaved people.

It has been over 400 years since the introduction of enslaved Africans to the Americas and since then, African Americans have fought for true equality in the face of overwhelming racism.

On Dec. 6, 1865, slavery was officially ended in the United States, but African Americans were still heavily discriminated against and in constant danger due to the rampant prejudice of white Americans.

After almost 100 years of scratching and clawing for adequate civil rights, African Americans finally achieved a major step in the right direction with the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Alas, while the country has moved on and African Americans are in a much better position than ever before, the dark past and grim reminders of this country’s history remain.

The 21st century has brought forth a different aspect of racism and the fight to end it: social media.

In schools, educators teach students that “America is the greatest country in the world.”

“It is a melting pot of cultures and people.”

“The American dream can be achieved through hard work and determination no matter what you look like, what you worship, or who you love.”

Social media has shown what America really is and what it has always been: An intolerable ticking bomb of a country.

“Racism is not getting worse, it’s getting filmed,” said actor Will Smith. Every day it seems like a video of a minority being put in a life-threatening situation goes viral.

Race relations this year has been an explosive powder keg. With the world already on edge due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the death of George Floyd and the protests surrounding his death has arguably defined 2020.

George Floyd was an unarmed black man murdered by Minneapolis police officers in May of 2020. Floyd allegedly tried to use counterfeit money at a grocery store.

He was detained by four police officers and pinned to the ground. One of the officers, Derek Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes. During that time, Floyd fell unconscious and suffocated to death after pleading, “I can’t breathe.”

Floyd’s death was recorded by onlookers and went viral on social media. His death sparked outrage amongst the Black community and protests erupted across the country.

The death of Floyd was just the straw that broke the camel’s back as earlier in the year, two other highly publicized murders of Black people went viral.

The deaths of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery were key catalysts in the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Taylor was a Black woman who was murdered by Louisville police officers in her sleep after they raided her house on suspicion that she and her boyfriend were trafficking drugs.

The police found the person they were actually looking for earlier that night and the house that Taylor was living in turned out to be the wrong house. She was innocent.

Arbery was a Black man taking a jog when three white men followed him in their trucks because their neighborhood had a string of home burglaries and they thought he looked suspicious.

The three men, Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael, William Bryan, felt he was suspicious because he was a Black man jogging in their neighborhood.

The three men stopped Arbery and assaulted him. As he defended himself he was shot dead by one of the men. They left his body there to bleed out.

These race-based murders, as well as many other lesser-known cases, set everything in motion for a new civil rights movement.

The month of June was saturated with protests around the country. Several protests were met with violence from police officers, neo-Nazis, and protesters alike but one thing was certain.

It was beautiful to see so many people from different genders, ages, sexual orientations, and races rally together to combat systematic racism and police brutality.

The youngest generation, Generation Z, arguably had the biggest impact on the protests, since they are the farthest removed from the original civil rights movement.

Generation Z is known for their digital savvy and inclusive and diverse personalities. Their desire to put everything on social media has raised awareness and showed the more oblivious population that racism still exists and is highly prevalent.

.For many members of Generation Z their first experience with the horrors of racism was the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2012.

Martin was a Black teenager who was murdered by another man, George Zimmerman, while walking through his neighborhood for looking suspicious.

Generation Z was too young to really do anything about it and had to go through their teenage years witnessing this madness.

When the time was right, they acted. Soon this country will be a much better place. Hate is not biological; it is a learned practice. Generation Z put racism on the forefront of everyone’s mind and the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of this newest generation will be the ones to truly change the world.

Generation Z just got the ball rolling.