Oppression, MLK Jr., Iron Jawed

oppression, MLK Jr., Iron jawed angels

Martin Luther King, Jr. lived between 1929 (January 15th) and 1968 (April 4th). He "was an American political activist, the most famous leader of the American civil rights movement, and a Baptist minister. Considered a peacemaker throughout the world for his promotion of nonviolence and equality treatment for different races, he received the Nobel Peace Prize before he was assassinated in 1968." "In the eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action; and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as numerous articles. In these years, he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that caught the attention of the entire world, providing what he called a coalition of conscience. And inspiring his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," a manifesto of the Negro revolution; he planned the drives in Alabama for the registration of Negroes as voters; he directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to whom he delivered his address, "l Have a Dream," he conferred with President John F. Kennedy and campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson." All of these made him a world figure, and his ideas worthy of following.

Of course the most well-known and most influencial of his speeches is " I Have a Dream," but there are others just as important. One such essay is "Three Types of Resistance to Oppression," in which he preached non-violent resistance as a means of fighting oppression and achieving social goals.

The film "Iron Jawed Angels" deals with just such oppression and social fighting. It presents "the struggle of suffragists who fought for the passage of the 19th Amendment. Focusing on the two defiant women, Alice Paul (Hilary Swank) and Lucy Burns (Frances O'Connor), the film shows how these activists broke from the mainstream women's-rights movement and created a more radical wing, daring to push the boundaries of political protest to secure women's voting rights in 1920." As the story unwinds, all three types of resistance are displayed, mostly by the oppressed, but sometimes by the oppressor, and the women have to fight with all their soul and conviction for what they believe.

The first form of oppression listed in his essay by Martin Luther King is acceptance. "Oppressed people deal with their oppression in three characteristic ways. One way is acquiescence: the oppressed resign themselves to their doom. They tacitly adjust themselves to oppression, and thereby become conditioned by it. In every movement toward freedom some of the oppressed prefer to remain oppressed."(...) "There is such a thing as the freedom of exhaustion. Some people are so worn down by the yoke of oppression that they give up" (...) " to accept passively an unjust system is to cooperate with that system; thereby the oppressed become as evil as the oppressor." This kind of oppression seems to be the most common kind, or the one most commonly performed, since it is easier not to take action and let other fight for your rights. In the film " Iron Jawed Angels" this is one king of oppression easily identified, and is performed not just by the people the main characters are fighting for, but also by the people they are fighting alongside with: older conservative activists for women's rights disapprove their more radical opinions and methods. "In a country dominated by chauvinism, this is no easy fight, as the women and their volunteers clash with older, conservative activists, particularly Carrie Chapman Catt (Angelica Huston)."

The second way to resist oppression listed by Martin Luther King in his essay is the violent way, a way he disapproves of and a way against which he speaks. "A second way that oppressed people sometimes deal with oppression is to resort to physical violence and corroding hatred. Violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem; it merely creates new and more complicated ones. " This type of resistance is the most striking of all, and the easiest to recognize in real life, and also in this film. It is a type of resistance that both the oppressed and the oppressor sometimes use. A march of protest sometimes turns violent, and by doing so it serves no goal and brings no deliverance to the suffering. In the film, the protagonists' protest takes the form of a hunger strike, earning them the nickname "iron jawed angels," and this can be considered as the most violent way they could protest. The oppressors' violence is in the form of the forced imprisonment on unjust causes, and the way in which they forced the women to eat.

The third way to resist oppression is by nonviolent protest, and this is the way supported in his essay by Martin Luther King. "The third way open to oppressed people in their quest for freedom is the way of nonviolent resistance. (...) the principle of nonviolent resistance seeks to reconcile the truths of two opposites- acquiescence and violence- while avoiding the extremes and immoralities of both. The nonviolent resister agrees with the person who acquiesces that one should not be physically aggressive towards his opponent; but he balances the equation by agreeing with the person of violence that evil must be resisted." In the film this idea is supported, as any just idea, and the women in the fight try to persuade people of their just cause, not to force them into it. However, things sometimes turn towards violence, no matter how right and nonviolent ones methods and ideals are.