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Marcus Huggins
Instructor: Brenda Tindal
HONR 3700-H04
September 23, 2014

Critical Response Paper #1

When thinking about the Civil Rights movement, what comes to mind? Martin
Luther Kings speech while nearly 200,000 Americans gathered at the Lincoln Memorial
to participate in the March on Washington? What about the Montgomery Bus Boycott of
Rosa Parks, the sit-ins, and the freedom rides? While these events highlight the view or
common understanding of the Civil Rights movementclassical civil rights
movementthere also lies a perspective from the local viewpoint of the people who
actually lived during that time period that often gets overlooked. Looking at Steve
Lawson and Charles Paynes book, Debating the Civil Rights Movement, 1945-1968,
Lawson describes the main events or classical civil rights movement in his section A
View from the Nation, while Payne discusses the local or underrepresented events of the
civil rights movement in his section "A View from the Trenches." Due to Americas
ocularcentric nature of preserving history, most people remember or learn the civil rights
movement from the classical perspective; however, the view from the trenches is also
very essential to the remembrance and perseverance of the Civil Rights movement.
Before going further into the debate of civil rights representation, one must know
the essence of visual culture within American history. James Cook describes that the
principle of visual representation is leading to the ocularcentric depiction of history

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(Cook, 441). He states that the cause of this ocularcentric depiction is not only out of
some nave notion that it was possible to control that terrain fully or consistently, but
that they recognized that representation and self-determination are inextricably linked
(Cook, 441). He further goes on to say that In a public sphere increasingly driven by
mass-circulated images, the ways we see are never simply the stuff of sensory
experiencethey are also part and parcel of a new kind of politics (Cook, 441). Cook is
basically explaining his notion that the American system uses visual representation or
images to control political affairs due to the fact that there seems to be a correlation
between image and self-esteem. This idea of using imagery to affect self-respect was
greatly demonstrated during the civil rights through the use of caricature, as well as
media, to portray African-Americans as inferior.
Steve Lawsons main argument in his section A View from the Nation, is the
importance of the federal governments role, as well as national organizations, in shaping
the fortunes of the civil rights movement (Lawson, 3). Lawsons classical perspective
(1954-1968) highlights the major events that occurred during the Civil Rights movement
such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Brown v. Board of Education, Little Rock Nine,
freedom rides, sit-ins, March on Washington, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, just to
name a few. Without various presidents, congress lawmakers, and members of the
Supreme Courts legal aid, Lawson states that the struggle of white supremacy and
segregation in the South still would have taken place (Lawson, 3). Furthermore, Lawson
explains the importance of national organizations such as the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), as well as other

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organizations. These national organizations could do what African-Americans in most
local communities could not achieve alone: pressure the federal government into
overturning the prolonged, entrenched system of white supremacy by turning the civil
rights dilemma into a national cause.
On the other hand, Charles Payne strays away from the typical notion of
describing the Civil Rights movement as the American South having a long tradition of
racial oppression and that the weight of American Institutions were brought forth to bear
the problem of civil rights. Instead, Payne describes the importance of local perspective
when considering the Civil Rights movement as a whole. He asks many questions
throughout his section A View from the Nation, allowing the reader to ponder on how
they would summarize the civil rights movement; from a classical perspective, or taking
in the consideration of the various interpretations of local civil rights activist who
participated in the movement. With this in mind, Payne explains that the way people
remember the civil rights movement is only illustrated by the way they remember the
larger movement (Payne, 47). He exemplifies that we tend to construct our memories in
ways which make us feel good; however, these memories obscure us from the main
purpose of the movement (Payne, 47). The way we think about that period continues to
shape how we think about race relations in our time and how we think about the larger
problem of creating a more just society (Payne, 2). This implies that our perception of
the past will continue to shape the way we think about race to this day.
Considering both Payne and Lawsons arguments, I agree that the civil rights
movement should be looked at as a whole rather than just considering it from a national
or classical perspective. I feel it is important to remember the Civil Rights movement

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from a long civil rights perspective in order to account for various interpretations. I feel
that the local viewpoint allows us to understand how America has progressed to the point
it is today. Without knowing what occurred throughout the Civil Rights movement, a
sense of American historyas well as history in generalis lost. Visual and tangible
objects tell us about Americans racial past and future. The film The Butler embodies the
historiographical traditions/debates reflected in Lawson's "A View from the Nation" and
Paynes' "A View from the Trenches" by highlighting many major events that occurred
throughout the classical civil rights movement as well as another perspective of the
narrator as he experiences first-hand the causes and effects associated with these major
events from a local standpoint. The butlers disapproval of his sons activist actions
contradicts the national viewpoint or belief that all African-Americans were pro nonviolent/violent activism. The view from his son and various presidents also posit a long
view of civil rights as well as the fact that the movie begins in 1926 and ending in the late
20th century.