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Jennya Alexeyeva
Ms. Winslow
AP English Language and Composition, per. 5
16 March 2017
The Role of Indignation and Outrage in Initiating Social Change
When a long train of abuses and usurpationsevinces a design to reduce them under

absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, the American

Declaration of Independence reads. The concept of protests and rising up against ones

oppressors is not a new one, though it is one that has been seen fairly often as of late; the worlds

history is riddled with revolutions, whether they be successful or not. Time and time again, brave

men and women have banded together and stood against a social injustice, but whether this has

caused any change depends on each individual revolution.

There are examples of successful protests. Ones in the past include the American

Revolution, in which the colonies were outraged at the injustice of unfair taxation and as a result

started an entire war just to become their own country and not have to answer to an unjust king.

This protest, though bloody and long, was ultimately successful. Another example is the Haitian

Revolution, which obeyed similar principles only instead advocated for the end of slavery in the

colony Saint-Domingue. This, too, ended well, and not only was slavery over, the oppressive

French settlers were expelled. More recent is the Civil Rights Movement, at the end of which

black people in America had the same rights as white people. During all of these social

movements, people noticed that something was wrong with the world, and they took a stand and,

in the end, changed society for the better.

It is also important to note that there are revolutions that are intended to improve the state

of events but end up just making things worse. The French Revolution can be brought up as an

example of this. At first, it followed the same patterns as its American predecessor; the French

Third Estate felt unjustly taxed by King Louis XVI, and they decided to rise up and fight a war to

create a constitutional monarchy that would take the peoples desires into account as well. This

revolution, however, quickly turned bloody under the leadership of Maximilien Robespierre as
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people suspected to be against the revolutionary spirit were guillotined, and amidst the bloodbath

that France turned into, another tyrant arose, perhaps even worse than King Louis: Napoleon

Bonaparte. During the Reign of Terror, society changed radically religion was abolished, for

example, and in the end the leader and his policies did change but symbolically, there was still

a tyrant who did not care about the peoples will, and France was left with only casualties in the

thousands to show for its struggles.

However, it is essential to note that for every revolution that succeeds in one way or

another, there is another that fails. For example, in the Venezuelan Revolution, Simon Bolivar

attempted to form a state called Gran Colombia, which united Venezuela, Colombia, and

Ecuador against the Spanish oppressors. In the end, this collapsed due to political infighting. On

a similar vein, the Mexican Revolution, led by priests Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla and Jose Maria

Morales, also ended in tragedy, specifically the executions of its leaders. More recently, anti-

Trump protests have occurred after the businessman was officially elected president, and even

after the inauguration in the case of the well-known Womens March. However, Donald Trump

remains our president despite protesters best efforts, and nothing seems to have changed in the

modern-day political system.

Considering evidence from both sides, the more persuasive one seems to be the fact that

social change can arise from indignation and outrage. It is true that there are protests that failed,

but in these cases the protesters were heavily outnumbered, and many did not have the power to

create true change in social systems. When enough people with enough power band together,

however, as they did in the American and Haitian Revolutions, social change is not only

possible, but practically inevitable.