People participate in protests in order to stand up for their opinions, to make society equal for all civilians, and to prove and point, and protests are effective when they are achieved with nonviolence and are nondiscriminatory.
Firstly, individuals participate in protests in order to stand up for their opinions and to fight against something they personally disagree with, whether it be a law or ideology. In Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech against the Vietnam War on April 4, 1967, he states, “For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.” MLK could not stand the Vietnam War and personally protested to try and end the suffering and death the war had brought. He felt as though the US government was making costly, wrong decisions that need to be rectified by withdrawing from the war entirely to cut the government’s losses. In conclusion, individuals protest to try and stand up for their opinions and to …show more content…
In a testimony to US Senate Foreign Relations on April 22, 1971, John Kerry says, “...many people in this country had a one-sided idea of who was kept free by our flag, as blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties…” Kerry disliked and protested the war because he felt as though it was discriminatory and further divided the country back at home, with those of African American descent and those in the low, working, or middle class being drafted much more often than those in the upper class because of loopholes in the system. He felt as though this was unfair, as the America is based of the principles of freedom and equality and were being kept free and protected under the law. Therefore, many people participate in protests in order to make their society equal for all