Writing is a very powerful thing. People from all ages, races, and cultures have used writing as a form of expression for centuries. Some works of writing can influence or change certain aspects of life. Those who read these works are sometimes so heavily inspired that they take matters into their own hands and carry out the visions of the writer. There are particular writers that are always quoted and never forgotten. We have to remember that there are thousands of writers from past times as well as our times that create powerful writings as well.

One writer whose writings had the power to enact social change is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His speeches and writings have been some of the most influential and inspiring documents of all time. His writings changed social class and economic issues. They also started the Civil Rights Movement, which has opened many doors for people. The writings of King have been so powerful that his messages seep through the lines in other writers of today. There are three poets in particular that have developed their own perspective on the writings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The first poet that illustrates a message of King’s writings is Terry Tempest Williams. The three line poem reads,
The erosion of voice is the build-up of war.
Silence no longer supports prayers,
But lives inside the open mouths of the dead.
(February 12, 2003).
This poem is compared with a passage from King’s “I See the Promised Land”. In his passage he talks about how the nation is sick, troubled, and in a state of confusion. He expresses his desire for God to let him live a few years in the second-half of the twentieth century so that his voice can be the cause of the ‘masses of people who will be rising up’. Both writings demonstrate how one person’s voice can impact a society and how a prayer won’t support you unless there is some individual’s action behind it. These two writings influence people to use their voices to stand up for what they believe in. Many people today have been so inspired that they have accomplished great goals by using their voice alone.

On April 7, 1957 King gave a sermon at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church called “The Birth of a New Nation”. In it, he reminds his fellow Americans that they can ‘break loose from oppression without violence’ and that they ‘must revolt in such a way that after the revolt is over (they) can live with people as their brothers and sisters’. Gregory Orr is the second writer whose poem “Refusing” demonstrates this nonviolent resistance ideal of Kings’. Orr uses the following metaphor to express his message,
Tough bargaining,but easy on the violence.
That's what we poets learned from poems: it's all on the table,
but it's stupid to break up the table with an axe,
to splinter the chairs.
When he says that ‘it’s stupid to break up the table with an axe to splinter the chairs’ he is saying the same thing as King. They both agree that there are limitless ways to revolt that don’t include violence. Today many people use this message by using forms of protest, sit-ins, boycotts, and civil disobedience to resist instead of turning towards violence.

The final poet, Rose Styron, talks about the death of children in the midst of violence. Dr. King also talks about this in his “Eulogy for the Martyred Children”, Sept. 18, 1963, Birmingham Ala. Styron writes,
What shall we sing on the crest of a war all sense we ride wrong
save the mad boy in power deaf to the cries deep in cities and forests
tuned only to praise from his patriot chorus?
What anthems or lullabies soon can restore us
after we killed the children?
(Untitiled, March 2003)
King expresses his compassion for children when he writes ‘they are martyred heroines of a holy crusade for freedom and human dignity.’ These two writers express their humble attitudes towards children who are affected by wars/violence. Today there are thousands of services provided to protect and aid children. There are also many people who have devoted their lives to making sure that the children of our world are safe and provided for.

All in all, I believe that writings can enact social change. If someone doesn’t agree, then I believe that they are reading the wrong type of writings. In today’s society people have very malleable minds and when they retain information from writings, they feel as if it is their responsibility to take action. I think that more people should tell their opinions and ideas on life so that we can all communicate and help one another out in the beautiful form of expression we know as writing.

Gabrielle Sammartino
Mr. Fiorini 11-1 English
Price of a Child – Narrative Poem

The Price of Freedom is Vigilance
Opportunity knocks, so I decide on leaving Proctor and his plantation behind, letting it seep to the corners of my mind and slowly settle down as being a part of the past.
Realization sets in; I have left my baby boy Bennie with the wife of my slave owner, I begin praying he won’t be sold off as a result of my actions.
The empowering thought of leaving the slanted South, where they strive on the institution of slavery, and navigating north where the white man will pay a slave to speak in public reaches my head and spins around and around to the point where everything has become a gigantic blur.
Traveling to Philadelphia; where I obtained the most precious gift of life, despite Proctors protests. With the help of Nig Nag, a Negro messenger, Passmore Williamson, and William Still, who told me to ‘rise up with my children and walk away’, I have become a free woman.
Traveling to the Olive Cemetery; where the Quick’s were mourning their deceased family and I was ‘quickly’ trying to make my own family. Meeting Manny, the man who made this family and kept them tightly together like the walls of his strongbox, Tyree, Bea, and Aunt Zilpha, whose home in West Chester safely separated me and my children away from the nightmarish horrors of discovery.
Traveling to New York; to hear new ideas from abolitionist William Wells Brown; a brown skinned man, who means all things well in ending slavery in the South, dinning at my first restaurant, and signing an affidavit of hope for a man that my gain of freedom has placed in jail.
Speaking to Eliza Ruffin, Eugenia Pitts and the Ladies of the Anti Slavery Society in halls and parlors; smelling the aroma of sweetly baked cakes, and hearing the clank of the china tea cups on each ladies plate.
Speaking to the multitudes at mass services in Massachusetts, offering my knowledge hoping they won’t get offended.
Many speeches, towns, and faces changed. Countless days and two deaths later, it was time to move on.
The hardest part was leaving Tyree. Leaving Tyree for a new life in Canada. Going to Canada on the same ferry Proctor would’ve taken towards Nicaragua. The same ferry where I found my freedom up on its docks. The docks where I began my new life - my free life. The life I was leaving, and Tyree, who I was saying goodbye to.
Tyree, the man who carried my children, the man who welcomed me, the man who loved me and the man that I loved, the man who gave me the silver toothpick.
The silver toothpick that glistened like the horizon would on the day when I would be reunited with my son Bennie. Nothing could separate me from my boy any longer. Leaving my beloved Tyree was the price for my child, and that was the price I was more than willing to pay.