Whether it be heliocentrism or the civil rights movement, it is often the voices of the few that have driven revolution and changed history. Why is it then that we are often afraid to speak our minds and voice our opinions? Why are we afraid to contradict the masses? Why are we so often afraid to just…speak up? As one who doesn’t often voice her own opinions, these are the questions I seek to answer on “SPEAK UP,” a blog through which I hope to help both myself and my audience learn to find their voice. To answer these vital questions, I will analyze the work and accomplishments of famous revolutionists and try to understand how they found the courage to speak up.
Maya Angelou
“You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like, air, I’ll rise.”
-Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou was truly a jack of all trades: single mother, dancer, sex worker, dancer, calypso singer, streetcar conductor, magazine editor in Cairo, administrative assistant in Ghana, official of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, friend to activists and revolutionaries like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom (the highest award a civilian can receive), playwright, autobiographer, poet, among other things. Before she was any of these things, however, she was a civil rights activist.
Angelou was born in Missouri as Marguerite Ann Johnson; but, after her parents divorced, she and her brother were raised in Arkansas by her grandmother. She experienced the injustices and racism of the Jim Crow South firsthand. Around age 7, when she went to go visit her mother, she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. After he was tried and found guilty, her uncles killed him in retaliation. Believing that her words had brought about the man’s death, Angelou refused to speak, essentially becoming mute for the next five years. Her love of literature was the only thing that eventually brought language back to her. As a teenager, she lived with her mother in San Francisco, studying dance and theater as well as becoming the first black woman to be a streetcar conductor there. She became pregnant at the age of 16 and gave birth to her son, Guy Johnson. She struggled to raise her son as a single mother, working all kinds of odd jobs to support them, including prostitution when times became desperate. After a failed marriage to a Greek sailor named Tosh Angelos, she began to travel and perform, singing and dancing under the name Maya Angelou.
All of these experiences led her to her work as a civil rights activist. When she settled in New York, 
she joined the Harlem Writers Guild while also singing to supplement her income. She helped organize a revue to raise funds for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization that had been founded by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and others; after they saw how successful her revue had been, they asked her to become the coordinator of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s New York office. Although she was first inspired by King to pursue life as an activist, she later began to doubt the effectiveness of his methods out of frustration at the lack of social change. She eventually began to work more with Malcolm X, favoring the more direct and aggressive approach to achieving societal change.
In the late 1960s, Angelou became romantically involved with Vusumzi L. Make, a South African civil rights activist. She moved with him to Cairo where she became the associate editor of The Arab Observer, a magazine there. This is where she first met Nelson Mandela, a close friend of hers (after his death, she wrote a poem in his honor). She eventually left Make, as he was too controlling. She then moved to Accra, Ghana, where she was an administrative assistant at the University of Ghana. While in Ghana, she led a march on the American Embassy at Accra during King’s famous march on Washington, calling for an end to segregation and the apartheid.
She eventually returned to New York, where she helped Malcolm X set up his Organization of Afro-American Unity in 1964. This did not last long, however, as the group dissolved after his assassination a year later.
In 1968, Dr. King requested that she travel to promote his upcoming “Poor People’s Campaign.” She agreed, but before she could begin her tour, she learned that Martin Luther King had been assassinated on her birthday, April 4, 1968. Angelou stopped celebrating her birthday for years after this and sent flowers to Coretta Scott King, King’s widow, for more than thirty years until Coretta’s death in 2006. After Dr. King’s death, Angelou also began to focus more on her writing.
She published her most famous memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, one year after Martin Luther King’s death four years after Malcolm X’s death in 1969. This autobiography began at her birth and ended at the birth of Angelou’s son when she was 17. It was the first in a series of seven auto biographies. The were Gather Together in My Name (1974), Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas (1976), The Heart of a Woman (1981), All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986), A Song Flung Up to Heaven (2002), and Mom & Me & Mom (2013).
Even the tragic deaths of her friends could not stop her activism; her writing was still infused with the feelings of the civil rights movement.This was especially noticeable in her poem “On the Pulse of Morning,” which she composed and recited for President Clinton’s inauguration. In 2010, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom award from Obama for her contributions to the civil rights movement. She passed away on May 28, 2014. The world mourned the loss of someone who helped change its perspective on people of color worldwide that day.
Her poetry and literature continues to inspire people to this day. Her memoirs and autobiographies show how far we have come, while her more recent poetry shows how far we still have to go.
Of course, we must ask the question, “What made Maya Angelou so unafraid to speak out and start revolutions?” I believe that there are multiple factors that contributed to this. She, like many other activists and revolutionaries before her, lived through injustice. She clearly saw a need and, knowing that if she didn’t do it, it might not happen, she stepped up to take a role. She, unlike other activists we have analyzed, was not always at the forefront of the struggle. While in some cases–like in Ghana–she led the people, in others, she took on a more supporting role–such as when she helped raise money for Dr. King or helped establish organizations that others got the credit for. Not only that, but she didn’t always speak out with her voice. Sometimes, such as after the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., she spoke out through other mediums, such as her poetry or her autobiographies.
I feel that this is something we could all learn from. We don’t necessarily have to speak out verbally. There are other, more passive, yet just as effective and influential, methods of inciting change. Like Maya Angelou, we can start change through our talents, through art, through mediums besides our own literal voices. The resulting metaphorical voice can be just as effective, if not more so today, in our current social media-dominated world.
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http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/remembering-maya-angelou/moment-time-obama-awards-maya-angelou-medal-freedom-2010-n116286
http://www.biography.com/people/maya-angelou-9185388
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/maya-angelou-radical-activist#52461
Malala Yousafzai–Warrior for Education
“I speak not for myself but for those without voice… those who have fought for their rights… their right to live in peace, their right to be treated with dignity, their right to equality of opportunity, their right to be educated.”
-Malala Yousafzai
The entire world of 15 year-old Malala Yousafzai changed on October 9, 2012, when she was shot by the Taliban for speaking out on the educational rights of young girls like herself.
Malala was born on July 12, 1997 to Ziauddin and Tor Pekai Yousafzai in a peaceful and progressive area of Pakistan known as Swat Valley. Swat Valley was slightly different than the surrounding northwestern area of Pakistan; it allowed girls to be educated. Malala’s father, Ziauddin, had started a school in the area himself that educated more than 1,000 girls and boys; so school had always been a large part of Malala’s life.
When Malala was born in 1997, Swat Valley was still a peaceful area. As she grew older, however, the Taliban began to move into the area. They began demanding that certain traditional Pakistani values 
be upheld, including that girls not be educated. Malala, however, was never afraid to speak her mind on the value of an education despite the threats of the Taliban. Looking back on why she chose to speak out, she says, “… I didn’t want my future to be just sitting in a room and be imprisoned in my four walls and just cooking and giving birth to children.”
Malala began to widen her outreach on girls’ rights to education. She began posting to an anonymous blog for BBC Urdu and gained more influence in her own area. When she spoke, those around her listened because she was not only speaking about something that affected her nation, but also something that affected herself and her own desires. She and her father became known throughout Pakistan for their public campaign for children’s rights to an education. Her family, although somewhat worried for her safety, was more worried about the safety of her father, Ziauddin, who allowed girls to be educated at his school. No one thought the Taliban would target a child.
On October 9, 2012, Malala was riding home on the bus her mother forced her to take for her own safety, lest she be spotted by the Taliban on her walk home. As the bus was flagged down by two college-aged men, she noticed that the streets were deserted. They demanded to know which girl was Malala. Without considering the consequences of a mere glance, the girls around her looked in her direction, identifying Malala to the men. They opened fire, shooting Malala in the head and wounding two other students next to her. After ten minutes of waiting for help to arrive, Malala was airlifted to a nearby military hospital in Peshawar that was more 
equipped to care for her–and protect her–than her local hospital. She was eventually transferred to a larger military hospital in Islamabad at the suggestion of Fiona Reynolds because of her worsening condition, a pediatric specialist from Birmingham, England who just so happened to be in the area. As she stabilized, Dr. Reynolds suggested that she be rehabilitated in Birmingham where the best of care could be given to her.
After having a steel plate put in her skull, a facial nerve reconnected to repair paralysis in her face, a 
surgery to remove damaged brain tissue, months of rehabilitation, a cochlear implant to improve her hearing, and many other forms of care, Malala has made a remarkable recovery. She has written her own novel, entitled I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban. She spoke to the United Nations on her 16th birthday and is currently the youngest recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize (she was a co-recipient at age 17, 2014).
What has allowed Malala, such a young girl, to have the courage to speak out and become an activist known around the world? Her deep desire for knowledge and a bright future as well as her wish for all children of Pakistan to have the same opportunity is what has driven her to be so incredibly outspoken. She is quoted as saying, “For my brothers it was easy to think about the future. They can be anything they want. But for me it was hard and for that reason I wanted to become educated and empower myself with knowledge.” She simply 
desires that all children, regardless of gender, are presented with the same opportunities to be successful. She knew that she couldn’t let something as simple as fear get in the way of her education and her future. Instead of cowering in fear and not going to school as the Taliban demanded, she went to school for the education she so desperately wanted and continued to vocalize her opinions on all children’s need for an education.
The Taliban intended to silence Malala on that fateful day she was shot; they wanted her widespread influence to stop right there. Rather than silence her, however, her influence has only spread, and she is now an activist known around the world for her bravery and all that she has given to Pakistan. When asked what she thinks the Taliban accomplished that day, she smiled and answered, “I think they may be regretting that they shot Malala. Now she is heard in every corner of the world.”
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http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24379018
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/malala_yousafzai.html
https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2014/yousafzai-bio.html
Deliberation Post–Marijuana
For this blog post, I will be taking a break from talking about speaking up. Instead, I will talk about a public discussion I attended. This past weekend, I attended a deliberation entitled “Marijuana–A Controversial Topic to Deliberate at State.” Before going into this debate, I already knew my thoughts on the matter. I’ve never seen any reason for marijuana not to be legalized at the federal level. I did, however, gain some insight on the matter after attending this deliberation and now feel that I would have more solid points the present when presenting my opinions.
The first approach addressed decriminalization of marijuana. This would essentially make being found with marijuana more like getting a traffic ticket rather than a federal offense that warrants jail time. The only cons presented to this approach were moral points rather than points that would have an effect on everyone. The pros of decriminalizing marijuana is that it would save money and time. Processing those who have been caught with marijuana requires a lot of money; then, their jail time has to be paid for. Processing each person also requires a lot of time from the police; those found to be in possession of marijuana have to be searched for, taken to jail, and go through the process of entering jail. All of this requires a lot of man hours from the police. Many more than would be necessary if they essentially just had to write a ticket.
The second approach addressed the legalization of marijuana for medical use. There were actually many more cons than pros with this approach. The first, and in my opinion the biggest, con presented was the risk of abuse. If marijuana was legalized medically but not recreationally, some might give or sell their medical marijuana to someone else with the intent to use it for recreational purposes or might use it for recreational purposes themselves. Another con was the possibility of the use of marijuana as a gateway drug. This con, however, was refuted with data by someone sitting in the crowd. Another con presented was that we don’t actually know if it’s more effective than other drugs in the treatment of various diseases because there haven’t been many clinical trials. This, however, could be changed if it was legalized medically. The final con presented was that pharmaceutical companies, which contribute a lot to the economy, would lose a lot of money if it was found that marijuana is a better painkiller than other over-the-counter or prescription pills. The only pro presented was that it has been shown to be incredibly useful in the treatment of chemotherapy patients, those with PTSD, and those with chronic pain.
The third approach addressed the full federal legalization of recreational marijuana. Seven states and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational marijuana. One pro for the legalization of recreational marijuana is the cessation of organized crime. During the Prohibition Era when alcohol was illegal, there was a lot of organized crime in order to maintain the consumption of alcohol. This holds true for marijuana as well. Full federal legalization would also allow those who use marijuana to lead relatively normal lives rather than the limited lives of convicts. Another pro is that the government could regulate the distribution of marijuana if it was federally legalized. The only con presented for this approach was that if recreational marijuana was legalized, insurance companies might refuse to cover medical marijuana on their insurance plans.
I now feel that after attending this debate, I am more prepared to defend my viewpoints on marijuana consumption and why I feel it should be legalized.
Martin Luther King Jr.
“I came to the conclusion that there is an existential moment in your life when you must decide to speak for yourself; nobody else can speak for you.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
When analyzing famous revolutionaries, Martin Luther King Jr. is the obvious choice to any person of color in the United States. Many things contributed to Dr. King’s remarkable ability to speak his mind and sway crowds to understand and join him in his struggle for equality. These include, his personality–including his inspirations and strong desires–and simple necessity. We will analyze these things in an attempt to better understand Dr. King’s drive to speak up and influence society in ways that we can still see today.
As we all know, Dr. King was incredibly impactful. One of the things that drove him to influence so many people was simply his personality. He was shaped most by his past experiences and his studies. His father, Martin Luther King Sr., also spent years fighting against racial inequality, which he thought went against God’s will. He always encouraged his children to seem themselves as equal with everyone, never above or below anybody. This, of course, influenced Martin Luther King Jr. and his 
perspective on the world (Biography.com). Initially, Martin Luther had little desire to participate in religion even though his father was a pastor and his family was heavily involved in the church. In his junior year of college, however, he took a Bible class which restored his faith in God and decided to pursue a career in ministry (Biography.com). He also heavily studied the philosophies of Mahatma Gandhi. 
He drew his philosophy of achieving equality through pacifist demonstrations and love from Gandhi’s philosophy of Satyagraha, Gandhi’s “instrument for collective transformation…originating in truth and love” (Sulik). His desires also shaped who he was. We know this from the lasting impact of his “I Have a Dream” speech; it wouldn’t have had such a lasting effect had his dreams not been powerful and shared by many. His desire for equality–both for himself, those around him, and those after him–drove him to be so outspoken.
Many psychologists also believe that Dr. King had mania as well as depression. Dr. Steve Bressert defines a manic episode as “a mood state characterized by a period of at least one week where an elevated, expansive or unusually irritable mood exists” (Bressert). Dr. Nassir Ghaemi stated that he was repeatedly hospitalized for exhaustion with “a frequency…[that] hasn’t been appreciated.” This can be further seen by his impulsive pre-adolescent behaviors; when his grandmother passed away, he attempted to jump out of a second story window twice in what appears to have been suicide attempts. The year of his death, many of his friends and acquaintances noted that he seemed deeply depressed. He had to have multiple young assistants because they simply couldn’t keep up with King’s high energy levels. He also struggled to balance his moral battle against sins and inequalities with private immorality; he had many affairs and a sexually explicit comedic style. These traits are all signs of mania. These same manic symptoms, however, most likely contributed to his ability to speak out, work hard, and effective influence so many people (Ghaemi).
Although King’s personality certainly contributed to his ability to speak out, it was a combination of this and his ability to see the great necessity of someone who could change America. We desperately needed change; we have all heard of the horrors of the Ku Klux Klan (I found this article to be simultaneously interesting, enlightening, and horrifying; I just couldn’t stop reading. It’s definitely worth the read if you have some spare time). The lynching and beating of African Americans was regular, as was the indifference–and sometimes participation–of those in a position of authority to put a stop to it (I would suggest watching The Great Debaters to truly grasp the indifference of those in authority. This was a very enlightening movie). As he said in his “I Have a Dream” speech, “Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation….But 
one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination” (King). He went on to address the poverty of the African American people, the continued although indirect prohibition of some black people to vote, and the overt racism coming from both fellow citizens and those in positions of authority (King). He saw the black community’s need for a leader and knew he could fulfill that role. Rather than shying away from it, he embraced that role.
In conclusion, many things contributed to Martin Luther King’s profound ability to speak out and voice his opinions. In general, we can attribute it to his personality, the things that influenced him, his high energy levels, and his ability to see that the world needed to hear what he had to say. Although we don’t necessarily have to be quite so influential as Dr. King, we can still learn from him. By recognizing that our opinions are valuable more often than we think, we can have more confidence in sharing it more often. After all, could you imagine America today if Martin Luther King Jr. had decided his opinions weren’t valuable and that he shouldn’t speak up at all?
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Biography.com Editors. “Martin Luther King Jr. Biography.” Biography.com. A&E Television Networks, 5 Jan 2017. Web. 15 Feb 2017.
Bressert, Steve. “Manic Episode Symptoms.” Psych Central. Psych Central, 2 Sept 2016. Web. 15 Feb 2017.
Ghaemi, Nassir. “Person of Interest: The Driving Furies of Martin Luther King, Jr.” Psychology Today. Sussex Publishers, LLC, 1 Jan 2014. Web. 15 Feb 2017.
King, Martin Luther. “I Have a Dream.” American Rhetoric. American Rhetoric, 7 Feb 2017. Web. 15 Feb 2017.
Sulik, Gayle A. “The Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” Psychology Today. Sussex Publishers, LLC, 20 Jan 2013. Web. 15 Feb 2017.
Why We Don’t–A Psychologist’s Perspective
Revolution of society begins with vocalized opinions. Why is it, then, that although we often clamor for societal change, we more often than not keep our opinions to ourselves? Psychologists believe there are multiple factors that can contribute to this silence, the most notable of which are a fear of societal rejection and a fear of seeming unintelligent.
It’s no wonder that we often don’t speak up; from our first day in kindergarten, we are told we must sit still and keep our thoughts to ourselves, lest we disrupt the flawed learning environment for others, an environment that’s based on sitting still and absorbing information for later regurgitation rather than generating new and innovative ideas. It’s no wonder that because of this suppression of originality in our early life, many are unable to vocalize their opinions later in life.
Punishment for speaking out in class is our first taste of societal rejection due to having opinions. This fear of rejection runs so deep that it borders on physical pain. Literally. According to Judith E. Glaser, an organizational anthropologist who has studied rejection for years, fMRI studies show that the areas of the brain that are active when we feel rejected are the same areas of the brain that are active when we feel physical pain. This is why rejection is the most feared human interaction. In fact, the association between physical and emotional pain is so strong that taking painkillers has also been shown to alleviate “social pain.”
This fear of rejection is not only due to its association with physical pain in the brain, however. Glaser also states that in her studies as an anthropologist, she believes the fear of rejection also served an evolutionary purpose. Humans simply couldn’t have thrived alone; our species needed “the tribe” to sustain itself. Throughout human history, man had to constantly monitor what he said and did to avoid rejection, social exile, and the inevitable death that would follow if an individual was forced to live alone. Working together is how the human race has managed to come so far.
Everyone, however, doesn’t seem to be affected by this fear. We all know that one person that never seems afraid to speak their mind. Why is it, then, that some people become silent and keep their opinions to themselves in social situations while others become more outspoken? Elizabeth Bernstein reported in the Wall Street Journal that two main factors determine whether or not we speak out: personality and position. Some people are 
simply extroverts; it’s just a part of their personality. Even extroverts don’t always voice their opinions though. One man reported to the Wall Street Journal that he is typically very talkative in group settings; yet when he has dinner with his wife and her friends–all of whom have master’s degrees or higher–he doesn’t say much for fear of sounding stupid.
Researchers at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute conducted a study that shows more evidence that perceived societal position plays a large role in whether or not we choose to voice our opinion. Essentially, people were placed into small groups and given a list of questions and problems to solve. Some people panicked when their rankings went down yet were able to recover and eventually answer questions; others were unable to recover and continued to answer questions incorrectly or ceased to give input to the group. When the results of their study are analyzed, they show that some people “become dumber” if placed in a group setting with people they think are smarter than them, losing both their problem-solving ability and their “expression of IQ.” Women and people with especially high IQ’s seem to be more likely to clam up in group settings. A doctor, presumably of high IQ, stated that he usually makes a comment then, based on the cues he receives, either continues or stops contributing his opinion to the group. The women did worse on average because they tend to be more in tune with a group’s dynamics. Researchers believe this served an evolutionary purpose; in order for the typically weaker women to receive additional protection from the group, they had to be more in tune with the group’s social dynamics. This holds with the findings of the study: 11 of the 14 “low performers” were female while 10 of the 13 “high performers” were male. In general, the researchers believed the “low performers” were subconsciously worrying about their performance constantly reassessing their value in the group based on how they did in relation to others (Bernstein).
In short, people don’t vocalize their opinions. The fear of societal rejection, seeming unintelligent or feeling inadequate in a group are major reasons. Simple things like personality and evolutionary development also play a role, however. It’s a combination of many things that drives our desire to stick to the status quo. Whether or not we should is a decision for each individual.
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Glaser, Judith E. “Why We Don’t Speak Up!” Psychology Today, 06 May 2016, https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/conversational-intelligence/201505/why-we-don-t-speak. Accessed 01 Feb. 2017.
Bernstein, E. (2012, Feb 07). Speaking up is hard to do: Researchers explain why. Wall Street Journal (Online) Retrieved from http://ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/920013157?accountid=13158. Accessed 01 Feb. 2017.