Why People Have To Stand Up

If we do not stand up for what we believe in, then what will we stand up for? If we let things go unchanged and did not have important individuals stand up for what is right, then where would we be now? If we sat back and let bad things happen to good people, what would that make us? We would be living in a world that no one wants to live in. One full of cruelty, hatred, and ignorance. In order for the world to become a better place individuals have to take a stand. The affect the individuals I am going to tell you about are immensely important to the lives we have today.
Fasting for two weeks. Being nailed to a cross. Having your house burned down. Taking a stand doesn’t have to be this hard, it can be as easy as just staying seated. Like when Rosa Parks boarded a bus and the conductor asked her to give up her seat to a white passenger and she refused. She was arrested for disobeying Alabama law requiring black people to relinquish seats to white people when the bus was full. Her standing up for what she believed in sparked a 381

day boycott of the Montgomery bus system. Which then led to a 1956 Supreme Court decision banning segregation on public transportation.
Billie Jean King, not only the former World No. 1 professional tennis player who won 39 Grand Slams and the founder of the Women’s Tennis Association, but also took a stand saying that women could be better athletes than men. In “The Battle of the sexes” she beat Bobby Riggs after he said to her that women were inept to male athletes. After the game she said, “I thought it would set us back 50 years if I didn’t win that match. It would ruin the women’s tour and affect all women’s self esteem.” If Billie Jean had not have won the match, then women might still be thought of as less than men.
Flying solo from Hawaii to California, Amelia Earhart became the first women pilot. She was called “Queen of the Air” and helped make the Ninety-nines, an organization for female pilots. She was an inspiration and role-model to young girls everywhere for her accomplishments. Some people may think that a woman flying a plane for the first time is not a big deal, but it played a big part in the women’s movement. Amelia Earhart flew the plane even though everybody thought that a women could never do it, she cleared the sky for young girls to fight for what they wanted.
In 1928 a single mother, named Christine Collins, returned from work and missing from her home was her nine year old son. She called the police to initiate a search. After five months, a boy was found in Illinois who fit the description. The police convinced him to say that he was her son. When the LAPD brings her to meet him as he gets off the train she knows right away that it is not her son. She tells the cops, but they tell her that she should keep him for awhile and that she just doesn’t recognise him. She tries to give him back to the police, and begs the LAPD to keep trying to find her son. They dismiss her and tell her she is crazy. She wanted justice for her son and would go to any lengths, but the LAPD would go to any lengths to protect their reputation which had not been looking the best. She gets solid evidence and tries to go to the media with it, but the police find out and arrest her and put her into a mental hospital. The mental ward is filled with other woman who had done no crime, but are wrongfully imprisoned there by the LAPD. Eventually new information is brought to the case by a detective working on a different case. The priest ,who helped her find evidence, finds out where they are keeping her and sets her free. They go back there after Christine starts building a case against the LAPD and set all the women free, disbanding the establishment.
Christine Collins got the officers accountable for the injustice fired, and restored her name.

She also helped in getting a man, who kidnapped and murdered dozens of young boys, sentenced to death. Even though she didn’t get her son back, she still saved other victims of the LAPD. She could have sat back, kept the child, and done nothing, but if she would have done that many more children would have been murdered; the LAPD would become even more corrupt and more women would have the same thing done to them.
Using your celebrity to make a difference is something many people do. Many people like Katherine Hepburn who won four academy awards for Best Actress, and is known for playing strong-willed women in her film roles. Walking around in a masculine style, she was the first actress to not conform to what society told her to wear. If it was not for Katherine wearing trousers that it would not be so sociably acceptable for women to wear

pants.
Taking a stand does not require you to be a certain age. Malala Yousafzai is the youngest person ever to win a Nobel Peace Prize. Under a pseudonym for the BBC, when she was eleven years old she wrote a blog detailing her life under the Taliban rule. She wrote about their attempts to take control of the valley, and her views on promoting education for girls. Following that summer, Adam B. Ellick made a New York Times documentary about her life as the Pakistani military intervened in the region. On October 9, 2012, Malala boarded her school bus and was shot in the head by the Taliban. Unconsciously in critical condition, Malala laid in the Pakistan hospital. Later her condition improved enough for her to be sent to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for intensive rehabilitation. The assassination attempt ignited a national and international support for Malala. A UN petition demanding that all children worldwide be in school by the end of 2015 was launched in Yousafzai’s name.
What if Malala had not taken the stand against the Taliban? Then the girls in Pakistan would never have received the recognition of oppression they needed. The problem would have become worse, but thanks to Malala, who will continue to fight for children's education, young girls will get the education they rightfully deserve.