Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Dealing with Prejudice: Sammy Younge
Racial discrimination against the blacks in America during the civil rights activism time left an indelible mark on the American history. As the country seeks to promote equal rights, it is important to consider the people who are not very famous, but paid for the current equality with their life as the ultimate price. One of these people is Samuel Younge Jr, a young American from Tuskegee, Alabama who had to deal with prejudice in the form of racial discrimination based on his color. The discussion in this paper will illustrate how Younge had to deal with the racial discrimination, prejudice in his quest to promote social justice.
Apart from the racial discrimination, Younge had to deal with discrimination in the military due to his medical condition. Just like any other young patriotic American, Younge joined the military. Unfortunately for him, he was discharged from the navy due to a medical condition that was later treated (Forman, 1968). He did not return to the military, but he returned to Tuskegee in 1964. He then started offering his service at the Tuskegee Veteran’s Hospital before going back to studies in Tuskegee Institute.
The entire life of Younge was based on his activities dealing with prejudice in the community. As a student, he got exposed to several instances of discrimination, just because of his color. In the larger community in Alabama for example, the black people were not allowed to participate in any democratic process. Due to his passion for a just community, Younge joined Civil Rights Movements such as the Tuskegee Institute Advancement League (TIAL) that became significant in his life as he fought for what he believed in (Forman, 1968). Despite his level as a student, he was congruent with human rights movements outside the college, which made him an appropriate leader of the movements at the institution.
To deal with prejudice against the black community, Younge worked with organizations outside the institution to protest the injustice in America. This prompted the organization of Montgomery protest that became the “Bloody Sunday” as it was termed. In this protest, Younge and other activists had to deal with mistreatment from the white policemen as protesters were beaten, leading to the marking of the day to that name (McGrath, 2011). In general, he was vibrant in directing the efforts of the students and members of the Alabama community to counter the effects of prejudice.
Younge was not just dealing with prejudice against the black community in Alabama but also in the whole country, especially the places where the civil rights movements took him. With a very selfless commitment Younge travelled to Mississippi in April of 1965 during the voter registration activities to assist the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to register black voters. With a lot of passion for equal rights, he worked with these two organizations to register rural voters both in Mississippi, Tuskegee and Brownsville (Forman, 1968). Being part of the voter registration activities did not only make him more conscious of the political injustices, but also part of the solution through the organizations he assisted.
One of the main focus points where Younge effectively worked to counter the effects of prejudice against the blacks was to desegregate public institutions. Together with the human rights organizations, he worked to desegregate restaurants, churches, pools and public schools in Tuskegee (McGrath, 2011). This was one of his main commitments, as he was focused to see that the blacks were liberated from the racial discrimination.
To accomplish his desire for a just society, Younge worked in very risky situations (Forman, 1968). For instance, Younge and other thirty activists were attacked by a crowd of white citizens in July 1965, while working to desegregate a church in Tuskegee. Consequently, Younge was not free of arrest like any other activist. At one time, Younge was arrested together with six of his colleagues in September 1965 while transporting voters to register in Lee County (Forman, 1968). Younge paid the ultimate price of death on the fateful day of January 3 1966 when he met his final act of violence from his believe in racial equality (Finkelman, 2006). He was threatened by a white voter registrar, with a knife for his role in the assistance of Negroes to register as voters. He was killed by a white gas station attendant just because of using bathrooms that were racially designated for whites only.
The life of Younge presents a man who was ready to go to great extents to fight for the achievement of equality in the society. In his entire life, he had to deal with prejudice against the black community in America. It is the prejudice that he was working to abolish that claimed is life, leaving an indelible mark in the quest for equality. Being killed because he was a black man presents a view that he sacrificed his own life for the sake of equality that he lived for. This presents Younge as a person who selflessly dealt with prejudice of racial discrimination against the blacks.
References
Forman, J. (1968). Sammy Younge, Jr.: The First Black College Student to Die in the Black Liberation Movement. New York: Grove Press
Finkelman, P. (2006). Encyclopedia of American Civil Liberties. New York: Routledge
McGrath, T. E. (2011). Sammy Younge, Jr. : Archival Scholarship of a Public Memory. New York: Syracuse University