A Stimulus for Revolution

Change is inevitable, whether it's human evolution, technological advancement, or growth from a child to an adult. Society has reached its current state of progress due to the various changes and transformations throughout history, and for the most part, oppressed groups of people are the ones who stimulate movements of social change, like the French Revolution, the Civil Rights movement, and more recently the “Black Lives Matter” movement.

Moments of disaster also arouse change as people desire to avoid such tragedies in the future, such as 9/11, which resulted in increased airport security and other national safety measures. Furthermore, “disaster” does not have to be a large-scale event, but any event that harms a group of people as such events increase the desire for change within people. In addition, change is more notable when it’s organized by a group of people that have leaders and a hierarchy as people feel a greater desire to follow an individual, like Martin Luther King Jr., rather than a disjointed network of people, like those on social media platforms.

Although the privileged and wealthy often restrict the underprivileged from changing society, substantial change is only brought upon when a group of people’s survival is at stake as the underprivileged group is compelled to fight for their rights and freedom.

Notable change occurs when people are forced to fight for their freedom or rights because their survival is at stake. More precisely, the desire to change society is further stimulated when an oppressed group is further attacked by a more powerful group of people. For instance, in his article, “Small Change,” Malcolm Gladwell describes, “Greensboro in the early nineteen-sixties was the kind of place where racial insubordination was routinely met with violence. The four students who first sat down at the lunch counter were terrified.” The Greensboro sit-ins were nonviolent protests that were a crucial part of the Civil Rights movement; however, they were effective because they were inspired by preexisting violence and prejudice against the African American community. Because of the preexisting fight for survival in a society filled with “racial insubordination” and “violence,” the freshmen from the North Carolina A. & T. college were encouraged to take action, and fight for their rights in the form of nonviolent protests, which is an indication of a change to the existing social standards. Thus, threats to the survival of a group of people encourage them to take action, showcasing that when people’s survival is at stake, they are compelled to go against the status quo and foster change by fighting for their rights.

Similarly, in “The Case for Reparations,” Ta-Nehisi Coates writes that “The NAACP endorsed reparations in 1993. Charles J. Ogletree Jr., a professor at Harvard Law School, has pursued reparations claims in court…Having been enslaved for 250 years, black people were not left to their own devices. They were terrorized.” The prior enslavement and violent terrorization of blacks resulted in a change to the African American mentality, exemplifying that social change is brought about by prior hardships.

More specifically, African Americans began demanding reparations in the post-slavery era because of the oppression, restriction of wealth, and lack of proper living conditions that their ancestors faced in the past. In other words, because African Americans had their survival at stake during times of slavery and much of the post-Civil War era, they were compelled to change their mentality and demand reparations from their oppressors after slavery was abolished. In essence, when people face harsh conditions and are deprived of their basic rights and freedoms, they push for change.