Subject: World History (But it applies to much more)
Title: "Power Comes From the Barrel of a Gun" - took the opposing view
"Would you respect me, If I didn't have this gun?
'Cause without it, I don't get it,
Power. A word from which many meanings derive. To each
individual, it means something distinct and it is how one uses their
power that makes up who they are. Power does not come from the barrel of
a gun. A gun can do nothing without someone there to pull the trigger.
The power to take a life rests within the person, the gun simply serving
as their tool. When groups protesting for a cause they believe in use
violent tactics, do they ever accomplish anything? When we kill , what
do we achieve? To say that power lies in the barrel of a gun is to say
that the most effective way to get what we want, or what we feel we
deserve is to murder. It is only those with no faith in their dreams, or
belief in themselves who could make such a statement.
Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "If a man hasn't found
something he will die for, he isn't fit to live." A leader in the Black
community and the recipient of the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize, King's
accomplishment of attaining civil rights for Blacks was a great one, but
the road to achievement was long and full of sacrifices. It was a time
when Blacks had no rights and most of them accepted this as the way it
was and no one could do anything about it. Most of them, but not King.
When the police arrested a black woman for sitting in the front of the
bus and refusing to give up her seat to a white woman, King led a
committee that organized a boycott of buses. The results were that on
April 23, 1956, the Supreme Court ruled that "segregation in public
transportation is unconstitutional" and that South Carolina as well as
12 other states must remove the "whites only" signs that hung...