[Frank Ettin]

Originally Posted by jimbob86

... the parallels between these two situations are as plain as day to me..... how are they not to you as well?

Blacks were at first discouraged from excercising their new rights by social pressure ..... sometimes by violent repression ...... after Reconstruction ended, laws chipped away at their rights a bit at a time...... until a black woman had to give up her seat to a white man, and that was thought of not only as right and proper, and to refuse to do so would get the black woman arrested for "Disturbing the Peace"....

And there are huge strategic and social differences.

1. So since your brought her up, let's take a closer look at Rosa Parks:
   
   
   1. On 1 December 1955, Rosa Parks was the third African-American since March of that year to be arrested for violating the Montgomery bus segregation law. That night, Jo Ann Robinson, head of the Women's Political Council, printed and circulated a flyer throughout Montgomery's black community starting the call for a boycott of Montgomery's city buses.
      
      
   2. Martin Luther King, Jr., as president of the Montgomery Improvement Association and pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, together with other Black community leaders, then organized the boycott of the Montgomery bus system. That boycott reduced Black ridership (the bulk of the bus system's paying customers) of Montgomery city buses by some 90% until December of 1956 when the Supreme Court ruled that the bus segregation laws of Montgomery, Alabama were unconstitutional (Gayle v. Browder, 352 U.S. 903 (1956)).
      
      
   3. Mrs. Parks actions and arrest were part of a well orchestrated, well organized, program leading to a successful conclusion.
   
   
2. Indeed the Civil Rights Movement in many ways is a poor model for the struggle for the RKBA:
   
   
   1. Different times, different causes, different social, political and legal climates.
      
      
   2. When Rosa Parks shook things up, her actions won wide support in editorials in major newspapers, from pulpits in houses of worship across the country and on college campus.
      
      
   3. The Civil Rights Movement of the '50s was the culmination of 100+ years of abolitionist and civil rights activity. It had broad and deep support. The goals of the Civil Rights Movement were promoted regularly in sermons in churches and synagogues all across the nation. The Civil Rights Movement had charismatic leaders like Martin Luther King who could inspire the country.
      
      
   4. During the days of the Civil Rights Movement of the '50s and '60s, civil disobedience, as favorably reported by the mainstream media, and as favorably commented upon on college campuses and in sermons in houses of worship across the nation, helped generate great public sympathy for the cause. That sympathy helped lead to the election of pro-civil rights legislators and executives. And that led to the enactment of pro-civil rights laws.
      
      
   5. The acts of civil disobedience, violations of law, involved very normal, benign, human acts: taking a seat on a bus for the ride home after a hard day at work; sitting at a lunch counter to have a meal; a child registering to attend school; registering to vote; voting; etc. These are normal, every day thing that White folks took for granted. And it became profoundly disturbing for many White to see other humans arrested for doing these normal, benign things simply because of the color of their skin.
      
      
   6. A tired black woman arrested for taking a seat on a bus is something that many ordinary people could respond sympathetically to. Does anyone really think that a man arrested for the illegal possession of a gun is likely to produce anything like a similar degree of sympathy in a non-gun owner -- especially after Columbine, Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook?
      
      
   7. How has the public thus far responded to the thus far minimal "civil disobedience" of RKBA advocates? Where have there been any great outpourings of sympathy for the plight of gun owners, especially from non-gun owners -- as whites showed sympathy for the plight of non-whites during the days of the Civil Rights Movement? Where are the editorials in the New York Times and Washington Post lauding the courage of gun owners in their resistance to the oppression of anti-gun prejudice? Who has heard a pro-gun rights sermon in his church? Where are the pro-gun rights rallies on college campuses? Where are non-gun owners joining with gun owners in pro-gun rights demonstrations, just as whites joined with non-whites in marches and demonstrations during the Civil Rights Movement? Where are our charismatic leaders inspiring the nation?
      
      
   8. During the Civil Rights Movement a largely sympathetic media was able to build widespread public sympathy for the cause. Today a popular media largely hostile to the RKBA helps build fear and antagonism.