After being arrested for disobedient activities to desegregate public facilities in Birmingham, Dr. Martin Luther King Wrote while incarcerated his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail:” One of the most important documents of the civil rights movement. In this letter DR king Jr. said: "Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." From this quote Dr. Martin Luther king elucidate for the mankind that whenever one feels the need of freedom one should get it by himself and from himself. As Bob Marley said it, “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery none but ourselves can free our mind." This fact is also proven in the play Anitigone by sophocles.
In
the play Antigone, Creon the king of Thebes has imposed his authority and has
defended anyone to bury the dead corpse of Polyneices. This was the most
outrageous punishment that could be inflicted to someone’s family. Everyone obey
to Creon, watching their natural right taking away from them. No one except
Antigone knew that her own freedom where on her own hands. Antigone, later on,
buried the corpse of his beloved brother and emancipated herself from mental
slavery. Talking to her sister Ismene she said, "It's not for him (Creon)
to keep me from my own".
The
oppressor would never give away freedom because at some extend the oppressed
man has conditioned passively his restraint. That is what Niccolò Machiavelli
so-called the founder of modern political science explained by saying:"
One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived”.
In the course of history, no group of people has ever taken their freedom without
battles and grieves. Since the story of the Egyptian civilization with Pharaoh
going to those latest revolutions in the Middle East, we have seen people
battling bitterly for their liberty.
A
real fight for natural right will always have success as they had in the past.
Napoleon Bonaparte said once "A man will fight harder for his interests
than for his rights", but he was wrong. Toussaint Louverture has freed the
slaves in Haiti because he fought for theirs rights, women have obtained suffrages
because they fought for theirs right. People who's being oppressed will find
their freedom only if they fight for it as their life interest.
While the freedom achieved was incomplete, how does the Civil War fit into this paradigm? Even if we accept the most critical interpretation that the North was fighting to preserve the Union, many fought and died to end slavery. And while African Americans did fight in the war, their numbers were not sufficient to win on their own. It required the efforts and deaths of many of European descent.
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