FREE ESSAY ON MEDGAR EVERS

MEDGAR EVERS

. "Southern Justice" is a very powerful film. Throughout this course we have studied many
theorists and I believe that some of their theories on society and social relations are
applicable. Karl Marx's dialectical materialism, Emile Durkheim's mechanical and organic
societies, and WEB Dubois' race relations theory all can be related. Social theories can
be helpful, though, in the quest for justice, for the simple reason that if something is
understood answering the question, why, it can then be fixed. 
Mrax's dialectical materialism is a theory that gives a rough outline of history, giving
general stages to which it may fit. Growth, change, and development take place through a
naturally occurring struggle of opposites, a process that individuals cannot influence.
He uses this philosophy to explain that only matter exists, so that the existence of the
mind, social institutions, etc., must be explained in material terms. That change occurs
when opposing forces, thesis and antithesis, lead to the production of higher forces,
synthesis, according to dialectical laws. This can specifically relate to the film and
also life in the United states at the time. The thesis, or prevailing status quo, is the
black hatred groups in Mississippi. The thesis, oppositon to the status quo, is those who
spoke out against the injustices to blacks, Medgar Evers. And the antithesis, new social
order becomes new thesis, was in 1994 when the Byron Beckwith was retried and found
guilty of the murder of Medgar Evers.
Durkheim's types of societies, mechanical and organic are characteristic of two
completely opposite forces. Mechanical is based upon caring and unconditional "liking",
it is considered mechanical because in the physical sense each part is "touching" the
other, people interact. Organic is described as modern, having rapid change and being
less direct with each individual "part"; its based on complexity in a highly
differentiated society, having multiple roles with multiple purposes. Now to attribute
this the the film I can bring this to a metaphorical level. The mechanical society can be
considered the slaves before they were "set free". But then a half a century later this
society based on caring is still there, but at the same time, this new organic society is
sprouting up quickly. These blacks in the south during the 1960's are being overthrown by
this rising white society of technology, the organic. So what Durkheim would say about
this film is that it's a society with in a society and the smaller is being bumrushed
like a bullfighter by a bull in Spain. 
DuBouis studied racialism in the United States and was became very well known for his
research. He noted that most blacks, after slavery, were peasants and had a theory of
race relations. This theory, which was of much controversy at the time, said that
segregation might serve blacks well, not specifically legal but self-imposed. He felt
that blacks should group together. In the film they did, Medgar Evers had joined the
NAACP, and organized demonstrations to combat the racism in the South. 
This documentary gave insight to the time period of the late 1950's until the mid 1990's,
showing a semi-evolution of how far the racialism, the degree to which people are
conscious of distinctive characteristics of people on the basis of race, in this country
has come and what struggles it overcame to get into this not-even-close-to-utopia that
Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of in his famous "I have a dream...." speech. Each of these
theorists' ideas can be helpful in understanding this film and the ever changing world.