Analysis Essay of A Personal Mission: Sammy Younge Jr.

Individual participation is important to create change because when lots of people act on something they will be heard.

When many individuals participate in creating change they will act on the situation enough to create a commotion which will help create change. This was shown in A personal Mission: Sammy Younge Jr. when Sammy was shot while exiting a service station and students and faculty marched to protest the killing. The second shot fired had hit him in the headThe next day 2,000 students and faculty marched. When the man who shot Sammy was found innocent the students became even more angry. They started to set fires and throw rocks and bottles into store windows. After this, black leaders had to act so they pushed for banning discrimination in hotels and restaurants and won. (Learning for justice staff, 2018). This supports that individual participation is important to create change because when the students and faculty acted on the situation they made their voices heard and created change in the city. Another example is when Sammy and other students at the Tuskegee Institute saw black people being turned down for things like jobs and the voter registration office. They decided to create the Tuskegee Institute Advancement League (TIAL) to push for stronger reforms. Sammy was a part of this and participated in boycotts which forced businesses to hire black people (Learning for justice staff, 2018). This shows that individual participation is important to create change because when people came together and created the TIAL it created change. Also, when Sammy joined the boycotts and helped black people to be hired for businesses his individual participation was crucial to creating that change. 

When many individuals participate in creating change they will make an impact on something which can influence others to participate as well. This was shown when Sammy started to feel the impact of white resistance and see how others blacks were treated. He began to experience terrible things. When he was with TIAL students trying to attend a white church he was beaten. Later on someone threatened to blow up the house where his mother lived. After that someone fired shots at a truck he was in. Then one day he was arrested along with 60 others who were trying to register to vote (Learning for justice staff, 2018). This supports that when individuals participate in creating change it will influence others because when Sammy saw how badly other black people were being treated and started to feel the impact of white resistance he became influenced to act on it. Another example is when Sammy Younge was arrested. He was trying to register to vote with 60 others when he got arrested. When the accused killer of civil rights worker Jonathan Daniels was acquitted in Lowndes County, Sammy organized a protest march. After he traveled to Lowndes to help black tenant farmers he organized blacks to go to the Macon County courthouse to register to vote. When they did, a man at the courthouse tried to scare Sammy with a knife, but was unsuccessful. At the end of the day about 100 black voters were added to the rolls (Learning for justice staff, 2018). This shows that when individuals participate they can create change and make an impact on something because Sammy was successful in getting 100 black people registered to vote. 

In conclusion, individual participation is important when creating change because it can influence others actions and allow people to be heard.