Civil War...Today?

July 21, 2006 Big Business and Big Government by Timothy P. Carney

Big business has too much power in Washington, according to 90 percent of Americans in a December 2005 poll.
Every week, headlines reveal some scandal involving politicians, lobbyists, corporate cash, and allegations of bribes. CEOs get face time with senators, cabinet secretaries, and presidents. Lawmakers and bureaucrats take laps through the revolving door between government and corporate lobbying. Whatever goes on behind closed doors between the CEOs and the senators can't be good or the doors would not be closed.
Just what is big business doing with all this influence? There are many assumptions about big business's agenda in Washington. In 2003 one author asserted, "When corporations lobby governments, their usual goal is to avoid regulation."
That statement reflects the conventional wisdom that government action protects ordinary people by restraining big business, which, in turn, wants to be left alone. Historian Arthur Schlesinger articulated a similar point: "Liberalism in America [the progression of the welfare state and government intervention in the economy] has been ordinarily the movement on the part of the other sections of society to restrain the power of the business community." The facts point in an entirely different direction:
Enron was a tireless advocate of strict global energy regulations supported by environmentalists. Enron also used its influence in Washington to keep laissez-faire bureaucrats off the federal commissions that regulate the energy industry.
Philip Morris has aggressively supported heightened federal regulation of tobacco and tobacco advertising. Meanwhile, the state governments that sued Big Tobacco are now working to protect those same large cigarette companies from competition and lawsuits.
A recent tax increase in Virginia passed because of the tireless support of the state's business leaders, and big business has a long history of supporting tax hikes.
General Motors provided critical support for new stricter clean air rules that boosted the company's bottom line.
The Big Myth
The myth is widespread and deeply rooted that big business and big government are rivals—that big business wants small government.
A 1935 Chicago Daily Tribune column argued that voting against Franklin D. Roosevelt was voting for big business. "Led by the President," the columnist wrote, "New Dealers have accepted the challenge, confident the people will repudiate organized business and give the Roosevelt program a new lease on life." However, three days earlier, the president of the Chamber of Commerce and a group of other business leaders met with FDR to support expanding the New Deal.
Almost 70 years later New York Times columnist Paul Krugman assailed the George W. Bush administration: "The new guys in town are knee-jerk conservatives; they view too much government as the root of all evil, believe that what's good for big business is always good for America and think that the answer to every problem is to cut taxes and allow more pollution." At the same time, "big business" just across the river in Virginia was ramping up its campaign for a tax increase, and Enron was lobbying Bush's closest advisers to support the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.
Months later, when Enron collapsed, writers attributed the company's corruption and obscene profits to "anarchic capitalism" and asserted that "the Enron scandal makes it clear that the unfettered free market does not work." In fact, Enron thrived in a world of complex regulations and begged for government handouts at every turn.
When commentators do notice business looking for more federal regulation, they mark it up as an aberration.
When a Washington Post reporter noted in 1987 that airlines were asking Congress for help, she commented, "Last month, when the airline industry found itself pursued by state regulators seeking to police airline advertising, it looked for help in an unlikely place—Washington." In truth, airline executives had been behind federal regulation of their industry for decades and had aggressively opposed deregulation.
In fact, for the past century and more big business has often relied on big government for support.
The History of Big Business Is the History of Big Government
As the federal government has progressively become larger over the decades, every significant introduction of government regulation, taxation, and spending has been to the benefit of some big business. Start with perhaps the most misunderstood period of government intervention, the Progressive Era from the late 19th century until the beginning of World War I.
President Theodore Roosevelt is usually depicted as the hero of this episode in American history, and his "trust busting" as the central action of the plot. The history books teach that Teddy empowered the federal government and the White House in a crusade to curb the big business excesses of the "Gilded Age."
A close study of Roosevelt's legacy and that of Progressive legislation and regulation, however, yields a far different understanding and shows that the experience with meat—big business calling in big government for protection—was a recurring theme. Roosevelt expanded Washington's power often with the aim and the effect of helping the fattest of the fat cats.
Today's history books credit muckraking novelist Upton Sinclair with the reforms in meatpacking. Sinclair, however, deflected the praise. "The Federal inspection of meat was, historically, established at the packers' request," he wrote in a 1906 magazine article. "It is maintained and paid for by the people of the United States for the benefit of the packers."
Gabriel Kolko, historian of the era, concurs. "The reality of the matter, of course, is that the big packers were warm friends of regulation, especially when it primarily affected their innumerable small competitors." Sure enough, Thomas E. Wilson, speaking for the same big packers Sinclair had targeted, testified to a congressional committee that summer, "We are now and have always been in favor of the extension of the inspection, also of the adoption of the sanitary regulations that will insure the very best possible conditions." Small packers, it turned out, would feel the regulatory burden more than large packers would.
Consider the story of one of the most famous "trusts" in American folklore: U.S. Steel.
In the 1880s and 1890s, rapid steel mergers created the mammoth U.S. Steel out of what had been 138 steel companies. In the early years of the new century, however, U.S. Steel saw its profits falling. That insecurity brought about a momentous meeting.
On November 21, 1907, in New York's posh Waldorf-Astoria, 49 chiefs of the leading steel companies met for dinner. The host was U.S. Steel chairman Judge Elbert Gary. The gathering, the first of the "Gary Dinners," hoped to yield "gentlemen's agreements" against cutting steel prices. At the second meeting, a few weeks later, "every manufacturer present gave the opinion that no necessity or reason exists for the reduction of prices at the present time," Gary reported.
The big guys were meeting openly— with Teddy Roosevelt's Justice Department officials present, in fact—to set prices.
But it did not work. "By May, 1908," Kolko writes, "breaks again began appearing in the united steel front." Some manufacturers were undercutting the agreement by dropping prices. "After June, 1908, the Gary agreement was nominal rather than real. Smaller steel companies began cutting prices." U.S. Steel lost market share during this time, which Kolko blames on "its technological conservatism and its lack of flexible leadership." In fact, according to Kolko, "U.S. Steel never had any particular technological advantage, as was often true of the largest firm in other industries."
In this way, the free market acts as an equalizer. While economies of scale allow corporate giants more flexible financing and can drive down costs, massive size usually also creates inertia and inflexibility. U.S. Steel saw itself as a vulnerable giant threatened by the boisterous free market, and Gary's failed efforts at rationalizing the industry left only one line of defense. "Having failed in the realm of economics," Kolko writes, "the efforts of the United States Steel group were to be shifted to politics."
Sure enough, on February 15, 1909, steel magnate Andrew Carnegie wrote a letter to the New York Times favoring "government control" of the steel industry. Two years later, Gary echoed this sentiment before a congressional committee: "I believe we must come to enforced publicity and governmental control . . . even as to prices."
When it came to railroad regulation by the Interstate Commerce Commission, the railroads themselves were among the leading advocates. The editors of the Wall Street Journal wondered at this development and editorialized on December 28, 1904:
Nothing is more noteworthy than the fact that President Roosevelt's recommendation recommendation in favor of government regulation of railroad rates and[Corporation] Commissioner [James R.] Garfield's recommendation in favor of federal control of interstate companies have met with so much favor among managers of railroad and industrial companies.
Once again, big business favored government curbs on business, and once again, journalists were surprised.
To cast it in the analogy of Baptists and Bootleggers, the muckrakers such as Sinclair were the "Baptists," holding up altruistic moral reasons for government control, and the big meatpackers, railroads, and steel companies were the "Bootleggers," trying to get rich from government restrictions on their business. Roosevelt was allied to the "bootleggers," the big meatpackers in this case. To get federal regulation, he found Sinclair a handy temporary ally. Roosevelt had little good to say about Sinclair and his ilk; he called Sinclair a "crackpot."
This preponderance of evidence drove Kolko, no knee-jerk opponent of government intervention, to conclude, "The dominant fact of American political life at the beginning of [the 20th] century was that big business led the struggle for the federal regulation of the economy." With World War I around the corner, this "dominant fact" was not about to change.
The men who gathered at the Department of War on December 6, 1916, struck a startling contrast. Labor leader Samuel Gompers sat at the table with President Woodrow Wilson and five members of his cabinet.
Joining Gompers and those Democratic politicians were Daniel Willard, president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad; Howard Coffin, president of Hudson Motor Corporation; Wall Street financier Bernard Baruch; Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck; and a few others. This extraordinary gathering was the first meeting of the Council of National Defense, formed by Congress and President Wilson as a means for organizing "the whole industrial mechanism . . . in the most effective way."
The businessmen at this 1916 meeting had dreams for the CND that went far beyond America's imminent involvement in the Great War, both in breadth and in duration. "It is our hope," Coffin had written in a letter to the DuPonts days before the meeting, "that we may lay the foundation for that closely knit structure, industrial, civil, and military, which every thinking American has come to realize is vital to the future life of this country, in peace and in commerce, no less than in possible war."
The CND, after beginning the project of government control over industry, handed much of its responsibility to the new War Industries Board (WIB) by July of 1917. That coalition of industry and government leaders increasingly took control of all aspects of the economy. War Industries Board member and historian Grosvenor Clarkson stated that the WIB strived for "concentration of commerce, industry, and all the powers of government." Clarkson exulted that "the War Industries Board extended its antennae into the innermost recesses of industry. . . . Never was there such an approach to omniscience in the business affairs of a continent."
Business's aims in the WIB were much higher than government contracts, and certainly business did not lobby for laissez faire. As Clarkson puts it, "Business willed its own domination, forged its bonds, and policed its own subjection." Business, in effect, shouted to Washington, "Regulate me!" Business called on government to control workers' hours and wages as well as the details of production.
A decade later Herbert Hoover practiced more of the same. Hoover's record was one not of leaving big business alone but of making government an active member of the team. As commerce secretary in the 1920s, he helped form cartels in many U.S. industries, including coffee and rubber. In the name of conservation, Hoover "worked in collaboration with a growing majority of the oil industry in behalf of restrictions on oil production," according to economic historian Murray Rothbard.
In the White House (where history books portray him as a callous and clueless practitioner of laissez faire), Hoover reacted to the onset of the Great Depression by pressuring big business to lead the way on a wage freeze, preventing the drop in pay that earlier depressions had brought about. Henry Ford, Pierre DuPont, Julius Rosenwald, General Motors president Alfred Sloan, Standard Oil president Walter Teagle, and General Electric president Owen D. Young all embraced the policy of keeping wages high as the economy went south.
Hoover praised their cooperation as an "advance in the whole conception of the relationship of business to public welfare . . . a far cry from the arbitrary and dog-eat-dog attitude of . . . the business world of some thirty or forty years ago."
Before FDR, Hoover got the ball rolling for the New Deal with his Reconstruction Finance Corporation. The RFC extended government loans to banks and railroads. The RFC's chairman was Eugene Meyer, also chairman of the Federal Reserve. Meyer's brother-in-law was George Blumenthal, an officer of J.P. Morgan & Co., which had heavy railroad holdings.
The New Deal and Beyond
After the groundwork laid by the Progressives, Wilson, and Hoover, the alliance of big business and big government continued throughout the 20th century.
Franklin D. Roosevelt implemented the same sort of government controls on the economy during World War II that Wilson had put in place during World War I, complete with rationing and price controls. Big business profited from the controlled economy in much the same ways that it had under Wilson.
President Harry Truman wanted his secretary of state's June 5, 1947, speech to Harvard's commencement to be a quiet one about the rebuilding of Europe. He didn't get his wish. The New York Times and the Washington Post both reported the story on the front pages. Within a day, the whole world knew about the Marshall Plan. But very few knew that a clique of mostly business leaders, called "The President's Committee on Foreign Aid," drafted the idea. Secretary of Commerce W. Averell Harriman, son of railroad magnate E. H. Harriman and former chairman of both Union Pacific Railroad and Illinois Central Railroad, ran the committee. Nine other businessmen joined him. "Throughout, business members—particularly Harriman— set the agenda and the tone for the group's work," historian Kim McQuaid writes. "Without the corporate politicians, Truman's effort would have failed. Men like [cotton baron Will] Clayton and Harriman arrayed foreign aid in procapitalist, anticommunist attire."
On Sunday night, August 15, 1971, millions of Americans watched President Richard Nixon lay out his New Economic Policy. Nixon had a reputation as a staunch conservative, but his New Economic Policy (a phrase borrowed, bizarrely, from Vladimir Lenin) showed Nixon to be a changed man. The federal government would prohibit any increase in wages, prices, or rents for 90 days. After that a "wage and price council" would dictate to businesses when and how much they could increase wages, salaries, and prices. The next day W. P. Gullander, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, declared that "the bold move taken by the President to strengthen the American economy deserves the support and cooperation of all groups." That reaction was typical among big businesspeople. The New York Times reported on August 17, 1971, "Business leaders applauded yesterday, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, the sweeping proposals announced by President Nixon Sunday night."
George W. Bush, in the name of "compassionate conservatism," has handed big business big favors in the form of a prescription drug benefit from Medicare, an energy bill full of brand new special tax credits and subsidies to energy companies, and a record loan guarantee to facilitate business with known nuclear proliferators in China. A report by the directors of the Health Reform Program at Boston University's School of Public Health found, "An estimated 61.1 percent of the Medicare dollars that will be spent to buy more prescriptions will remain in the hands of drug makers as added profits. This windfall means an estimated $139 billion in increased profits over eight years for the world's most profitable industry."
"The greatest trick the devil ever pulled," said Kaiser Soze in the film The Usual Suspects, "was convincing the world he didn't exist." In a similar way, big business and big government prosper from the perception that they are rivals instead of partners (in plunder). The history of big business is one of cooperation with big government. Most noteworthy expansions of government power are to the liking of, and at the request of, big business.
If this sounds like an attack on big business, it is not intended to be. It is an attack on certain practices of big business. When business plays by the crooked rules of politics, average citizens get ripped off. The blame lies with those who wrote the rules. In the parlance of hip-hop, "don't hate the player, hate the game."

I chose this article because I think it shows how: "The long-term effect of the Civil War on the US economy was to accelerate the development of big business manufacturing in the North initiated by the demands of war production." I think the Civil War influenced America Today in soo may ways because there was a lot of demand for things since men were away fighting and they needed equipment and stuff for the war. So a lot of jobs/businesses had to be created to feed the need of the Civil War.

The Constitution, The News, and Me.

1. The article I read is called A Few words about censorship vs. the freedom of speech. It started off with the quote, "Without the freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom, and no such thing as public freedom without freedom of speech; which is the right of every man as far as by it he does not hurt or control the right of another: and this is the only check it ought to suffer, and the only bounds it ought to know." Benjamin Franklin age 16! The gist of this article is that if we have the freedom of speech, why do people freak out when people actuallly excersice that freedom. He used examples of when 2 Live Crew was sued because of t heir lyrics and performances (my article was from 1990) and argues that there is freedom of speech, so if you don't like it you can simply ignore it. Then again he talks about cencorship and how he understands why people wouldn't want R-rated things and X-rated(censorship!) things just open to the public, but thats also where the question of why is their freedom of speech if people are just going to censor everything. I got a reallly good quote: It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those unspeakable precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them." It was the ending of my article.

2. Obviusly this article is related to the First Amendment of the Constitution. It talks about the freedom of press and expression vs censorship. The author used different examples such as inappropriate music, x rated books and videos sold in stores, and explicit art work. To show the contradiction of censorship and freedom of speech\ expression.

3. This article interests me because I always have found controversy between censorship and freedom of speech interesting. I think the two are super related, and its hard to draw the line of what is too much because it says in the constituion that there is freedom of expression in the first ammendment but does not have restrictions as to what is too much when you are excersiing that freedom.

blog#7

Something that stands out to me about the way we learn in this class is every day feels like inspiration day. It feels like we aren't in an english or history class but to me it feels like we are in a Motivational class. Everything sounds like you've said it thousands of times before and its very easy to follow what you are talking about. I like that due dates are strict and not moved around secretly and that it is made very clear how deadlines are going to work. To build on my success I will continue to write down eeverything in the LA Semana emails into my planner so i can stay updated every day and make sure I don't miss out on any assignments. I might also come in for some office hours because I somtimes struggle with the readings and history. I will strive to make an effort to participate in class discussions by asking questions when I do not understand something or when I get lost in the conversations. But overall history is working out a lot better than last year so far, I like how we compare the past to the present to show real examples and meanings of things.

final artist statement and picture

What is she?
By Brandi Coley
I was attending Fletcher Elementary, Ms. Long’s third grade class with tiny blue plastic chairs to be exact, when I read a biography about Rosa Parks. The biography introduced different elements of black history, but at that age I did not really know or understand much about the Civil Rights Movement. The only thing that stuck with me was that we shared the same birthday; February 4th. When black history month rolled around I wrote a short blurb about Rosa Parks’ act of courage on December 1st, 1955. Little did I know why she did it or the effect it had on black people in America.
My father tried to make me understand the importance of the history of black people when I was young. He would tell me that as a young woman growing up in America, especially a part black young woman, it was essential for me to understand what happened in the past that got black people in America where they are today. Every February my family and I gather around the television in the living room to watch showcases about the Civil Rights Movement, slavery, or both on HBO and BET.
When I was young the shows were not to my taste and often bored me, but I will never forget the testimony of a former black slave. A dramatization showed her running towards a forest, vicious hounds trailing her. The hounds caught her, mauled and tore off her breast, and then slave owners dragged her away. One month every year is dedicated to recognizing black history month and I am there for every 28 days.
Frederick Douglas, John Brown, John F. Kennedy, Linda Brown, Harriet Tubman, Malcolm X, and Rosa Parks all fought for numerous elements of the Civil Rights Movement. Whether the fight was for the Abolition of Slavery in 1833, the Equal Payment act in 1963, the Civil Rights act of 1964, the Equal Employment act of 1972, or the Equal Education act of 1974, they all had one common goal: Equal Rights and the end of Discrimination for black people in America.
Every day I encounter people defiling what civil rights activists have worked so hard accomplish. I try to tell them what they do is wrong and why it’s wrong- but they don’t care enough to take the time to understand. On rare occurrences, people do listen and I see a genuine change in that person and how they carry themselves. The others simply carry on their lives day to day with the same smug look on their faces, but I know that I just can’t give up on them now.
These others look at me with questioning eyes; What is she? They make assumptions and try to guess my race but become baffled by my tan, yet not dark enough to be ‘black’, skin. They make stereotypical judgments about me before they meet me and after they get to know me, wonder why I’m not the loud ghetto black girl they thought I would be. Once they find out I am part Asian that opens a whole new door for racial slurs and jokes. They find it funny, but I find it ignorant. Don’t they remember that everyone is created equal? People who make jokes like that either do not know the hardships their ancestors endured or do not care about the hard work and many years that went into it. My father did not want me to grow up to become one of them.

Blog#5 Questions about our writing...

1. What aspects of the American Icon artist statement successful for you and why?



The most helpful aspect of the American Icon Artist Statement is the thing where we go from past to present to past to present to past to present etc. because my regular writing pattern happened to be in that pattern. I think it makes sense for it to be like that also because it goes back and forth to show the connections between me and my icons.



2.What writing tips have been the most helpful and why?



The most helpful writing tip is the one about concerts not pancakes because it allows me to go back and reread and take out the nonsense words. Also the watch the adverbs tip' I went back and reread my artist statement and took out unecessary words to keep it to the point.

3. What aspect of the Artist Statement has been most challenging? Why?

The most challenging part of the artist statement for me is to add in my place in the continuum. It was hard for me to add because I don't want to just bluntly say: my place in the contiuum of icons is.... but I managed to get it in their more subtly but I'm not sure if its clear enough.

4. What is the most challenging writing tip and why?

I think the hardest writing tip is concert not pancakes because I am a swooper not a basher and it is harder for me to stop and make sure every word is a bang! instead of a blah.

5.

Every day I encounter people defiling what civil rights activists have worked so hard to bring to an end. I try to tell them what they are doing is wrong and why it’s wrong, but they don’t care enough to take the time to understand. On rare occurrences, people do listen and I see a genuine change in that person and how they carry themselves. The others simply carry on their lives day to day with the same smug look on their faces and I know that I just can’t give up on them now. I have come too far from where I started from.
The others look at me with questioning eyes; What is she? They make assumptions and give me racial groups but become baffled by my tan, yet not dark enough to be ‘black’ skin. They make stereotypical judgements about me before they meet me and wonder why I’m not the loud ghetto black girl they thought I would be, after they get to know me. Once they find out I am part Asian that opens a whole new door for racial slurs and jokes. They find it funny, but I find it ignorant. Don’t they remember that everyone is created equal? People who make jokes like that either do not know the struggle their ancestors endured or do not care about the hard work and many years that went into it. My father did not want me to grow up to become one of them.


questions: Does it flow? is there any confusion about who I am referring to at any moments in these two paragraphs? do you see my place in the continuum?

Blog #4 American Icons Opening and Closing

Intro: I was attending Fletcher Elementary, third grade to be exact, when I read a biography about Rosa Parks. At that age I didn't really know or understand much about the Civil Rights Movement. The only thing that stuck with me was that we shared the same birthday, February 4th. When black history month rolled around I chose to write a short blurb about what Rosa Parks' act of courage on December 1st, 1955. Little did I know why she did or what it meant for black people in America.

Outro: People look at me and think, What is she? They try to give me a classification, a racial group but become baffled by my tan, yet not dark enough to be 'black' skin. People make stereotypical judgements about me before they meet me. Once they find out I'm part asian that opens a whole new door for jokes, racial jokes. They find it funny, but I find it ignorant. Don't they remember that we are equals? People who make jokes like that either don't know the struggle their ancestors endured or don't care about the hard work and many years that went into it. My father didn't want me to be part of them.

1. I can't exactly say that I chose this opening and ending combo. I just kind of wrote what sounded and felt right. I think It makes sense to introduce myself and the topic intertwined and outro it with myself and the topic intertwined bu t with my personal part dominating the intertwined-ness.

2. My ending ties together my big ideas becuase well my big ideas were that discrimination is wrong, you should be educated about ur past, etc. I think the outro ties together my main ideas because it includes both my big ideas and how I am involved with them.

3. I hope that when people are done reading my work that...

-They will stop and think before they call others by racial slurs or other types of mean names

-Think about their elders before they defile or disgrace what has been done for so many years to get whatever their racial group (in my case black/vietnamese) to the place that they are now

-To stop telling me to go make them bok choy. This might sound like sarcastic but it is a serious thing, people think just because I'm asian I can just go and make all this asian style food and they don't even realize that Bok Choy is a vegetable...

-To use their brains a bit more often before speaking.

-Stand up for others when they see acts of discrimination happening even if its minor. little things always lead to big things.

blog #3 american icons

Part One

Two things I am including in my artist statement are segreagation and Rosa Parks. Segregation represents keeping two or more different things apart from eachother and not letting them into eachothers atmosphere or allowing them to intermingle. Rosa Parks can represent a number of things but one thing she represents is courage. Courage and Segregation may not relate directly but Black people needed to have courage in their hearts in order to make it through the Civil Rights Movement. Some didn't have courage and they did just fine, but those who did made a positive change.


Part Two

I found information on rosa parks as well as her picture from http://www.mindfully.org/reform/2005/Rosa-Parks-Dickson1dec05.htm


What I liked about this website is that it gave me insight to Rosa Parks' childhood. I never really knew anything about what or how she was before that day on the bus. I used the part about how she went to the montgomery industrial school for girls and how the school motivated the students to value themselves and go for the gold no matter what stands in your way.

Blog #2 American Icons Ideas.

1.Surfrider Foundation represents to me advocacy and helping others who are in need and can not support themselves.

2. Surfrider fights to help save the beaches and oceans and animals that reside there. They want to keep our oceans safe, protect special places, and preserve the beaches.

3. Surfrider is important because they spread awareness to people that the state of our oceans is not very much of a good one and we need to take it into our own hands to fix the problem we have created.

4. Surfrider became important to me when I did a water and sewer science project and we went into depth about everything going on with water and the earth. I learned about water pollution and many other things and it makes me feel very very bad that this is happening and I do my part in using reuasble bags and recycling and spreading word to my family and friends.

1.To me Martin Luther King Jr. represents piece of mind and awareness.

2. There were many important things to MLK and one of them was religion. While his father was alive he acted as an assitant pastor in church. I believe his education was important to him because he finished High School at the age of 15 and went on to graduate college and so on.

3.MLKJ became important to American culture because he fought for civil rights of African-Americans and supported the movement which many did not. He was able to stand up for those whose voices could not be heard.He opened up peoples eyes to what the future may behold for everyone to get along peacefully side by side.

4.MLKJ is important to me because he taught me that you have to stand up for what you believe is right in your heart and stand up for others who cannot stand up for themselves.

5.MLKJ inspired many peoplein a lot of different ways' some good and some bad. For example whoever killed him he probably inspired that person to not want MLKJ's dream to happen in the future...if that makes sense.

1. I think Rosa Parks represents courage because she stood up for freedom which not many blacks did back then.

2. She was always taught to stand up for herself and believe in herself ever since her school days when she attended Montgomery Industrial School for Girls whose policy was 'to take advantage of the oppurtunities no matter how few there were.'

3. Rosa Parks became important to the American culture because with her single act of defiance came a movement for the end of segregation.

4. This icon became important to me when I wrote something about her in 3rd grade during black history month. I wrote about what she did on the bus and later found out that what she did had a great influence on the movement and if it wasn't for the legal ending of segregation my life would be extremely different.

5. Rosa Parks inspired many people whether white, black, asian, or mexican, to stand up for themselves and what they believe in and know is right in their hearts.