Freshman Seminar, 4th Lecture (The Power Of Young People Civil Rights, Hip-Hop, Hope)

Today's speaker was Dr. Alton B. Pollard III, an impassioned individual with an ecstatic presentation on the evolutionary cycle for young people and the world around them, starting with Civil Rights, sliding through Hip-Hop, and then resting in Hope for the future. Alton's main message was that the youth of today are advocates of change for the future, as technically, they always have been. When new, fresh minds group together and agree on one ideal to make the world a better place, even when they only start with a small area, things happen and change occurs, whether minor or major. There is no failed attempt when it comes to a hard effort, for at the very least people have seen your deeds, and someone will follow your message if it is for the better good. He briefly touched on student led protests in the Gaza strip for the war, and student uprisings in Teron, meant to show that from the past, to recent times that there is still a struggle going on, that there are still many things that have yet to be done, and that someone has to take a stand to fix. In 1960, the Greensboro sit ins inspired a whole group of kids from another state (Kentucky) to have their own sit ins. He talked about a group known as the "shock troopers" a group of young minds banded together throughout the south looking to desegregate jobs and schools all across the nation. Then he went to Hip-Hop, which started with young poets of the age. Jazz music evolving, poets transforming their words into lyrics, it all spurred the idea that freedom is not just about individual rights, but that freedom is about a community responsibility.