Throughout history, weve witnessed a lot of cultural movements from the Civil Rights

Movement, Womens Rights Movement, and the LGBT Rights Movement, ect. Currently in

todays society, movements like this still exist. We constantly see the Black Lives Matter group

walking the streets when theres been an upset against the African American community. We

saw the Womens March that took place worldwide on January 21st of this year. Weve also

seen countless gay pride parades taking place across the nation. Weve made a lot of progress in

increasing equal rights for people no matter their race, gender, or sexuality. However, these

groups still have battles they are fighting, mostly social ones. Racism, sexism, and homophobia

still exist. Discrimination against those of a particular race, gender, or sexuality still goes on

behind closed doors. Since the progression of technology and social media, these underlying

issues are brought to our attention more often than before.

From seeing what has happened in history, we still have not forgotten all the past marches

and fights for equality. Many of these marches and protests came from things that were in the

newspaper. For example, the story of Emmett Till, a 14 yr old African American boy from

Mississippi who was brutally murdered for a false accusation of flirting with a white woman. His

story ended up in newspapers and magazines and was a pivotal catalyst for what came next in the

Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s. Another example of this was when Alice Paul was arrested

for protesting for Womens suffrage. She went on a hunger strike in prison and was force fed raw

eggs in response to her disobedience. After her story became known to the public, it caused an

upset. It added fuel to the fire for women fighting for suffrage. As shown in the textbook, in the

1960, despite finally have equal rights, Women were still not treated as equals in the workplace.

By participating in movements, by the 1980s, their roles had increased especially in education.
 Its been shown in history as people participate in movements like this, they are able to make

change. African Americans and Women both have equal rights. In recent years, gay marriage

was legalized which was major stepping stone in equalizing the rights of those in the LGBT

community. As certain issues are brought to the public, which now and days is through social

media instead of the newspaper, people protest for what they believe is right. If things continue

like they have in history, I believe the wage gap between men and women and the wage gap

between Caucasians and African Americans will lessen and hopefully one day disappear. I also

see many of the current social issues of racism, sexism, and homophobia continue to go away. I

see in the future my grandchildren reading about our current movements in their history

textbooks because of how they will change social cultural issues.