Standing Up To The Majority In 12 Angry Men

William Jennings Bryan once said, “Never be afraid to stand with the minority when the minority is right, for the minority which is right will one day be the majority”. Standing up to the majority is vital, it gives individuals the opportunity to express their individual, unique opinions and experiences. It allows the majority to become open to diversity and the cultures that come along with it. This has been shown throughout history, Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech, is an instance of this. This speech encapsulated all that he was fighting for, for the African American minority in America and their rights. MLK standing up to the majority of white people was a significant piece of American and African American history and was

The play 12 Angry Men is about a jury of twelve men that are given the task of deciding the fate, guilty or not guilty, of a young boy accused of murdering his father. The theme of standing up against the majority is very prevalent in this story because of the decisions some of the jurors make throughout the play. Juror 8 makes the decision to vote not guilty, he is the one and only juror in this play that decides to vote not guilty for the boy in the beginning. The other eleven jurors decide to vote guilty because of the evidence that they have been presented with. The act of Juror 8 standing against the majority of the other jurors about the case, voting not guilty, allows the jurors to thoroughly dissect the case, understanding it fully and thoughtfully before making their decision of guilty or not guilty. Without this, the boy would have been given an unfair trial, and possibly had been prosecuted wrongly for a crime he didn’t do. The play wouldn’t have been able to continue without this, because the jurors would simply convict him as guilty and the boy would be put in jail. This play is a perfect example of how standing up to the majority is prevalent and

Throughout time, there have been groups of people that have been mistreated, and have organized movements that they hope will help them get the rights they deserve. Not only has this happened in the past, it happens everyday across the world. There are many minorities in our society and each day, these minorities stand up to the majority in a variety of ways. There’s also groups of people that have experienced the same things that make a minority. For example, women have recently been opening up about experiencing sexual assaults, standing up to the men that have assaulted them. They have done this in a variety of ways, such as a coming from a legal standpoint in trying to get the men put in jail for the crime and posting about it on social media with the hashtag #metoo. These women are standing up to the men that have done them wrong, trying to find justice for themselves and the array of women across the world that have been through this traumatic experience. Another example is people of the LGBTQ community advocating for themselves in numerous ways. There have been numerous LGBTQ marches to spread awareness and their right to be equal to everyone else in our world. The people of the LGBTQ community are standing up to the majority, standing up to the people that don’t treat them as equals, or treat them unfairly. As a result of standing up for themselves, these women have received, or are in the