Activism is not just about picking up your home-made signages, converging in a busy street, and shouting obscenities in front of the cameras. In order to be a true activist, you got to believe in social change and how you, as an individual, can make a difference – no matter how hard the task is or how big of a challenge the opposition are.
This means that even if you don’t see things turning around, the important thing is the fact that you let your voice be heard. What matters is that activists believe in the cause that they are fighting for and even in the face of failure, still continue to fight and clamor for change.
As Romania-born American novelist and Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, would put it, ”there may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” Also according to Wiesel, we as a people must learn how to ”always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
Being a true activist is not about winning a fight. It’s about fighting for what you believe is right. And with that said, here are 17 photos that define what true activism is, starting with one of the best ones of them all, Mr. Martin Luther King.
200,000 people saw Martin Luther King deliver his ”I have a dream” speech at Lincoln Memorial.
MLK turned Lincoln Memorial into the birthplace of a great vision.
