Topic Exploration

What was the protest? Where are you drawing the boundaries?

The protest was about majority ( whites) who believed that forcing integrated busing alongside changing schools was an inconvenience as well as a project that they did not want their children to be included in for racial and educational purposes. The protest was in the form of violence. Whites took out to the streets and threw rocks at the windows of school buses passing by with minority on them. When the bus arrived at the school of its destination, they continued to throw objects, spit and hurl insults at the children. Although the protest is pretty straightforward, I do not want to get caught up in the history of segregation because it is a broad topic that has a long life span. Instead, I want to pick specific instances in history that cater to the topic and identity of my research paper. The main identity of my paper will be to highlight that although segregation is no more. The mindset of Americans still remain segregated.

Why do you believe that this identity is tied to this protest in a significant way? For whom is this tie significant?
I believe that this identity is tied to this protest because that is what the protest is all about. The protest revolves around those who do not want to send their kids to a school where they are forced to have a class with another racial group. Also, I think that partially, the mind of some are still stuck in the early 1900's. This means, being so new to desegregation in schools ( which only happened in the year of 1954, 18 years before this movement started) people are still not used to mixing races together and could possibly still believe in the old values. This is significant to mostly blacks and whites.

How did the group you are looking at participate in the protest?

The group I am looking at was the most aggravated by the desegregation movement. So, when protesting the movement, they ignited  their problem with the new system and built on it. This means, they started to violently protest. This group of people wanted their voices to be heard and a change to occur immediately.

When you think about this project, what are you worried or concerned about? Do your worries have anything to do specifically with whether you can tie your identity to the protest clearly? Are there questions that you think it will be hard to answer? Do you have methodological concerns? What part of this project do you think will be the most difficult for you?

When I think about this project I am very concerned about not having enough evidence to support writing a paper that is 15 pages long. I also worry about my identity not being strong enough. This mean, by limiting the main part of my identity to a specific racial group (whites), it means that I will have to incorporate or wrap my whole paper around that identity.With that being said, I am not sure whether there are enough evidence for me to make this topic into a paper. My questions are, are there interviews that took place during this movement that would be able to support my ideas? I think the most difficult of the project for me will be the initial stages; starting my paper. Finding a strong topic and knowing exactly what evidence I will be using to build a strong foundation on my paper.