Upon reading King’s utterance, “…freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed”, I overwhelmed myself with a plethora of questions. Is it right to take your freedom instead of receive it? If you don’t take freedom will it ever be given? Are there any cases that disprove this quote where freedom was voluntarily given? In answering I came to realize that without action there would be no reaction. King’s quote compelled me to favor his cause in one sentence because of its’ profound truth supported by literature, personal experience and history.
Literature stabilizes King’s cause for action because every literary work presents a character and a conflict. In order for the character to resolve the conflict he or she faces they must rise to the occasion and take action. The conflict will not simply resolve itself. In The Scarlet Letter Hester Prynne was oppressed by society for her obvious sin of adultery. As punishment the people of Boston forced her to bear a scarlet “A” as a semblance of her adultery. When society isolated Hester and sent her to live in a little shack far away from civilization they expected her to give up and move away to start a new life. Not only did Hester not give up, but Hester rose up and redeemed her name. To redeem her name she skillfully embroidered the letter “A” on her lapel that everyone gawked at everyday when she walked by. The townspeople couldn’t help but notice the quality of her embroidery so they began to call on her skills to better their own garments. In time, Hester’s “A” no longer stood for adulterer in the eyes of others; it instead came to stand for able. Needless to say, had Hester Prynne given up and moved away her name would have remained infamous and never been redeemed.
Through personal experience I also find that to fulfill a desire you must take steps towards that desire. When I first turned sixteen and began driving my parents didn’t trust me so much with the car. As a result of their distrust they only allowed me to stay out until nine thirty- even on weekends. Instead of complaining to them I decided to deal with the overprotective curfew as if it didn’t bother me at all. To gain my parents trust I often came home thirty minutes to an hour before my curfew, and I always called them when I went to or left places. In a little over a month my parents lightened up and extended my curfew to midnight on weekends. However, the success I had with my parents would have never been found had I ignored the old curfew and always came home late. Even though I did not directly ask my parents to extend my curfew I conveyed my desire through my actions of responsibility. This concurs with King’s views because he is basically saying that if we do nothing we won’t accomplish anything.
Lastly, King’s quote is supported historically by the American Revolution. Americans in the mid to late seventeen hundreds were oppressed by their British king chiefly by high taxes. To fight the tea tax colonists boycotted the British tea and left it sitting on ships in Boston harbor. The Sons of Liberty then decided to disguise themselves as Indians and dump the tea into the harbor- the Boston Tea Party. This action prompted Britain to tighten the leash on Americans with the Intolerable Acts. For Americans, the Intolerable Acts were the last straw. Americans decided they simply could not take rule by a dictator any longer and chose to draft the Declaration of Independence demanding freedom from England. Americans realized that Britain was never going to give them their freedom so they decided it was worth fighting for. Just think had the Americans of so long ago never demanded independence and settled for what they had we could still be a colony of England today. What if blacks had never demanded integration, would we still be segregated today?
In life the greatest risk is having no risk at all. If Martin Luther King would have never risked his life to compel people to act action may have never been taken. To avoid action because of the possibility of failure guarantees the failure of success. In all of these cases people chose to take action to gain freedom from their woes. Since every case supports King’s quote, “…freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed” it leads me to believe that no matter what the situation is to get what you want you will have to fight for what you believe. Always remember, “Anything worth having is worth fighting for.”
