People Making a Change

            In Paul Loeb’s Soul of a Citizen, he tells the story of Virginia Ramirez, a regular housewife living in San Antonio, Texas. Virginia, not having any education past the eighth grade, found it hard to get involved in making a change to her community. Virginia began noticing there were some problems in her local community. One of Virginia’s elderly neighbors had been without heat in her home for months due to poor housing conditions which the city was supposed to maintain. Virginia approached the city about this issue to help this elderly woman, however the city kept postponing her issue and pushing it to the side. After the elderly woman passed away from pneumonia due to the poor housing conditions a spark was ignited inside Virginia. She was furious that nothing was being done to fix this issue even though it had been brought to the city’s attention many times. She began attending COPS (Communities Organized for Public Service) meetings and later started leading

discussion groups about what would need to be fixed within the community in order to bring these issues to higher political authorities. With little prior education this task seemed very daunting to her, however after talking to more members of the community and becoming more acclimated, she began to realize that this was her calling. Virginia states, “It was hard to stand up to politicians and tell them what we wanted, because it’s been embedded in my mind to be nice to everybody… But I began to understand the importance of holding people accountable for what they promise” (Loeb 25). Taking the first initial step to change is often the hardest. Many people will often give up if their initial requests are not met by their communities. But if a change is to occur, then they cannot give up, they must continue to fight for the beliefs they have in order to make a change in their society.

In order to better America we must all do our part and pitch in to create not only a better community, but also a better nation. Take for example, Martin Luther King Jr. He had never planned to create such a large movement, however his small acts toward civil rights snowballed and caused many to take notice of the issue. His initial movement was a peaceful protest in 1955 to boycott the Montgomery bus system, which had Rosa Parks, an African American woman who refused to give her seat to a white man, jailed. Again in 1961, Dr. King along with fellow protesters took to the streets of Albany to protest the segregation laws. For unlawful reasons, the local police had arrested King along with many of his fellow protesters. When given the choice between a $178 fine or 45

days in prison, King chose prison. He knew that what was being done is degrading and unlawful and that people had to take notice of the issues that their communities were facing. A mere two years later was the Birmingham campaign which was started by Dr. King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference to end discriminatory economic policies in Alabama City. King encouraged the protesters to hold sit-ins and marches with the aim of getting arrested. With this tactic the city again arrested King and thousands of other protesters, overflowing the jail. Here in jail, King wrote his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail” which was later published in many newspapers and magazines. After this protest, people all over the country joined into the protests in what would later become a revolutionary change to our country. In the past history of the United States we as a country have often obtained what we wanted by waging war against other countries. While violence has provoked

positive change in the past, the cost has often been far too many lives. The peaceful protests like those of which Dr. King conducted have been proven very effective without any need for violence. Bettering America does not start by us sitting idly and waiting for something to happen, but rather going out into the world and making your voice heard.