Interpretation Time

" Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed."

                                                                                                         - Martin Luther King

A person cannot hold you down if you do not let them. If you allow your will to be broken, as does a horse by his owner, than you have given up the right to be a free human being. An oppressor will never let you out of his/her/or their grasps, unless you take a stand for what you believe in. Freedom is not handed on a platter, that we have learned from history. All great battles are won by those who are led by their hearts.
Take for instance, Alice Paul's battle for women's rights to vote. The Women's Suffrage Movement is a impeccable example of  the one person swimming against the tide. As Paul lived by her words, "There will never be a new world order until women are a part of it," she demonstrated the power of the human spirit. She took a stand in a society that refused to take her ideas and demands seriously and in the end she proved that the only means of ever truly gaining freedom is to reach out and take it for yourself.