10 Martyrs That Furthered The Civil Rights Cause
From activists to musicians and mathematicians, some of these may surprise you…
Right from the beginning, mankind has been plagued with injustices. These have often been overcome with war, but also with peace. Indeed, many have yet to be overcome. In this struggle, we have seen that one voice can sometimes have more impact than an army. For this reason, they have too often been put down. These voices belong to the martyrs of our world: the people who, despite meeting a tragic end, live forever.
As Tywin Lannister said, “Legacy is what remains of you when you’re gone,” and the paradoxical thing about a martyr of civil rights is that their legacy becomes all the more powerful when they are silenced. They have appeared in all walks of life and like monarchs, have launched dynasties that will last a thousand years, except these are dynasties not of people, but of rights: The right to freedom of expression and social inclusion.
Edmund Burke famously quipped, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. Here are some people who have heeded this call…
10. John Lennon
You know you’re a world-class musician when your work is so influential that the leader of the Free World tries to deport you. This was the case for John Lennon, whose 1969 single Give Peace a Chance was adopted in the US as an anti-War anthem. Despite President Nixon never succeeding in exiling Lennon, his desire to see the musician silenced was made real when Mark Chapman fired four bullets into his back on the streets of New York. He was 40 years old.
The ‘post-Beatles’ phase of Lennon’s life (and indeed, his hairstyle) was characterised by the hippie movement that swept the American 1970s, in which Lennon would take a lead role as part of the growing anti-Vietnam War protests. But when late on 8 December 1980, he stepped out of his car to find his murderer waiting for him (mentally deranged, and disturbed by Lennon’s level of influence), he became a martyr.
He had spent the last decade swimming against the violent tide of criticism he received for his outspokenness, soaring to new levels of influence, and for this he met a bitter and premature end. But his legacy of peace and freedom of speech is not something a gun could ever take from him.
Six days later, millions around the world held a 10-minute silence in his honour and every radio station in New York City fell silent.
The tragic irony in the murder of a peace-advocate is all too common in human history.