The Suffragette Movement: The Black Lives Matters Movement

Throughout American history, it has been the common citizens who have changed the course of history. A voice speaks out, and its fellows listen, and when they add their own voices, they become a shout impossible to ignore. When good citizens come together for a common cause they become a powerful force that is impossible to ignore as well as an unstoppable force for change. America itself is an example of this trend. America, before it was the free and independent nation that it is today, was a British colony, subject to the laws and levies that King George passed. The original colonists were not unhappy under the British crown, but they craved representation in Parliament, where they could have a voice in the tariffs that would be imposed on the colonies. They were refused time and time again, until they lost hope in becoming a respected part of Britain’s domain. Together they stood in solidarity, and they boycotted British goods to symbolize their independent will and their wish to be recognized as an independent nation. Eventually their rebellion erupted into a war, which would end in America’s favor and see the colonies

The Suffragette movement gave women the right to vote. More recently, the gay rights movement persuaded the Supreme court to legalize gay marriage in all fifty states. Today, the Black Lives Matter campaign is sweeping across America, although its effects are not entirely clear yet.
All of these movements were started because someone looked at their world, and was dissatisfied with what they saw. If they had been quiet, and let the injustices they observed go on, the country would not have been shaped and changed as it has been. It is the voices of the common, good people that compel the masses to act. In this way, their actions become a force for good, the oil that wets the cogs of the nation, to keep it from becoming stagnant and rusted as it