Transition In Edmund Burke's Roll Of Thunder, Hear My Cry

[Hook + Transition] Edmund Burke, an Irish author born in 1729, is well-known for his philosophical writings and once stated that “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” In other words, if righteous people act as spectators, evil will prevail. Some people agree with the idea while others do not. [Transition] He accurately states that “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” because by doing nothing, others can be physically and mentally harmed.
When ethical individuals do not act, others may be mentally wounded. To illustrate, in Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor, when Cassie, a 9-year-old black girl, is in Strawberry, Mr. Barnett calls her “a

In addition, Charlie Simms, Lillian Jean’s dad, orders Cassie to call Lillian Jean “Miz Lillian Jean” (71). Cassie “[flees] crying into the back of the wagon” and feels that “no day in all [her] life [has] ever been as cruel as this one” (71). No one was there to stop the immoral treatment of Cassie and through being called a “little n***” and having to call a girl not many years older than she is “Miz”, she feels hurt, subservient, and unworthy (68,71). She does not forget about this encounter. Next, according to the article “Amanda Todd: Bullied Canadian Teen Commits Suicide After Prolonged Battle Online And In School” by Ryan Grenoble, a man tricked a girl into flashing and, later, threatened that he would “send around the picture of her topless” if she did not “put on a show” (The Huffington Post). Not long later, the man “created a Facebook profile, using her uncensored photo as his profile picture” (The

For example, according to History Alive: The United States Through Industrialism by Laura Alavosus and Teachers’ Curriculum Institute , Private John G. Burnett called the Indian Removal Act “the most brutal order in the history of American warfare” and the “cruelest work [he has] ever known,” yet he obediently aided the process (265,268). Had he and the other soldiers not obediently complied, the march, an act of cruelty, would have never taken place. Nonetheless, many continued on even though they knew it was wrong. The flaw in the reasoning is that the soldiers are basically doing nothing against evil, allowing evil to be virtuous. In addition, by obeying the Constitution, the march would have never taken place. To continue, humans are physically hurt when respectable and decent people act as bystanders. For instance, in Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, when the lynch mob comes to kill TJ for his supposed murder of Mr. Barnett, Mr. Jamison “rush[es] to shield TJ with his own body” and when that does not stop them, “sw[ings] his car smack across the road so couldn’t nobody get pass him” (Taylor 160). If Mr. Jamison had obediently stood by and and listened the lynch mob, TJ would have been murdered as no one else who was capable, like Mr. Granger, seemed to care. Furthermore, in the CNN article