Look at the Civil Rights Movement. Look at any kind of fight for change. People had to keep fighting and taking their rights. Rights are never given to you. They have to be fought for and they have to be taken.
Interpretation
Change requires persistent effort and cannot be handed over voluntarily.
This quote emphasizes that rights and freedoms are not simply granted by those in power; rather, individuals and communities must actively struggle and advocate for their rights. It draws on the historical context of the Civil Rights Movement, illustrating that significant societal changes often come through persistent action and unwavering determination.
In practice
During a speech about social justice, a speaker might highlight this quote to emphasize the need for activism.
As the world is getting smaller, it becomes more and more important that we learn each other's dance moves, that we meet each other, we get to know each other, we are able to figure out a way to cross borders, to understand each other, to understand people's hopes and dreams, what makes them laugh and cry.
If you can laugh with somebody and relate to somebody, it becomes harder to dehumanize them. I think that most of what we are constantly bombarded with in terms of media leads you to a creation of 'the Other' and a dehumanization of 'the Other,' and it's very much an us-versus-them conversation.
Thomas Jefferson believed that to preserve the very foundations of our Nation, we would need dramatic change from time to time. Well, my fellow Americans, this is our time. Let us embrace it.
The Arab Spring reminds me a bit of the decolonisation process where one country gets independence, and everybody else wants it.
Every daring attempt to make a great change in existing conditions, every lofty vision of new possibilities for the human race, has been labeled Utopian.
Societies that empower women are less violent in every way.
It will be the people with the greatest love, not the most information, who will influence us to change.
It should be borne in mind that there is nothing more difficult to arrange, more doubtful of success, and more dangerous to carry through than initiating changes. The innovator makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old order, and only lukewarm support is forthcoming from those who would prosper under the new. Their support is lukewarm ... partly because men are generally incredulous, never really trusting new things unless they have tested them by experience.
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