Occupy Wall Street : a Legacy from the Civil Rights Movement ?
Occupy Wall Street : A Legacy from the Civil Rights Movement ?
Studying history in the making seems a strenuous task. Many will say that we lack detachment and objectivity to judge the sequence of events. But if we base our study upon previous historical facts, and thus draw a strict comparison between past and present, bringing to light what the actual history is or is not, then the objectivity seems somewhat restored.
We will thus see through this essay the parallel that can be drawn between the Civil Rights movement of the sixties, through the Port Huron Statement of the Student for a Democratic Society (SDS), and the newborn Occupy Wall Street movement (OWS), through its Declaration of Occupation of New York City. As history repeats itself, we will first see the similarities between the two movements, and then study what are the advantages that one may have upon the other.
Rooted in social crisis, both movements rose out of a deep feeling of inequality. Even if the causes seem different, we see, through the demands both movements make, that what triggers those movements is rooted in the same reality. Complaints about a corrupt political system, growing social inequalities, ongoing violence inside and outside the country... Either in the 1960s or nowadays, those issues created an urge in people's mind who figured that it was about time to do something, to remind their government and leaders that they could not act with complete impunity in a so called representative democracy. If we consider the Port Huron Statement on one hand, and the Declaration of Occupation of New York City on the other, we can see a difference in shape and yet not in pattern, in words and yet not in ideas.
Both texts rely on an anaphora to give strength to their content. On one hand, the Port Huron Statement claims that “We would... We oppose...” while the Declaration of Occupation states “They have... They continue...”. Even if this shows a difference in the point of view
Studying history in the making seems a strenuous task. Many will say that we lack detachment and objectivity to judge the sequence of events. But if we base our study upon previous historical facts, and thus draw a strict comparison between past and present, bringing to light what the actual history is or is not, then the objectivity seems somewhat restored.
We will thus see through this essay the parallel that can be drawn between the Civil Rights movement of the sixties, through the Port Huron Statement of the Student for a Democratic Society (SDS), and the newborn Occupy Wall Street movement (OWS), through its Declaration of Occupation of New York City. As history repeats itself, we will first see the similarities between the two movements, and then study what are the advantages that one may have upon the other.
Rooted in social crisis, both movements rose out of a deep feeling of inequality. Even if the causes seem different, we see, through the demands both movements make, that what triggers those movements is rooted in the same reality. Complaints about a corrupt political system, growing social inequalities, ongoing violence inside and outside the country... Either in the 1960s or nowadays, those issues created an urge in people's mind who figured that it was about time to do something, to remind their government and leaders that they could not act with complete impunity in a so called representative democracy. If we consider the Port Huron Statement on one hand, and the Declaration of Occupation of New York City on the other, we can see a difference in shape and yet not in pattern, in words and yet not in ideas.
Both texts rely on an anaphora to give strength to their content. On one hand, the Port Huron Statement claims that “We would... We oppose...” while the Declaration of Occupation states “They have... They continue...”. Even if this shows a difference in the point of view