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Grace Maloney
Ms. Thompson
AP Lang Block 1, Skinny B
May 18, 2015
MLK Draft 1
Privileged Rights
Privileges are earned, not given. This, however, creates a blurry, unanalyzed, line on
what causes the privilege to be taken away. In Civil Rights, it was clear that to do the right
thing meant whites would have to give up some privileges they held over blacks. In Letter
from a Birmingham Jail, MLK said that it is a historical fact that privileged groups
seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and
voluntarily give up their unjust posture, but groups tend to be more immoral than
individuals (MLK). King outlines the same idea but shows that it is more likely for an
individual to release privileges than would a group, for as a group, one has much more
power and always feel like he/ she is the leader. I agree with Martin Luther King Jr., and
this can be supported and seen in Civil Rights movement, The Lord of the Flies, and my
personal experiences as a student.
During the 60s, blacks risked their lives for equality during Civil rights One single
white living in Montgomery, Alabama at the time might see the moral light and might
help an elderly African American across the street or give up his/ her priority seat on the
bus. However, that same white man lives in a stable community with hundreds of other
white men, all used to being better and having power over the blacks in the area. There is
no time in history, where all the white men in a community came together to see the moral

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light and give up their privileges voluntarily and thus desegregate the whole community
and become best friends with their black neighbors. This is shown all throughout history,
proving Kings idea on groups not giving up like individuals.
In The Lord of the Flies, a group of boys crash lands on an island. As expected, a
group (similar to an oligarchy form of government where the country is ruled by a group)
of the eldest boys submerged from the rest as the leaders. Even with absolutely no
experience as any sort of officer or ruler, these boys decided everything from who gathered
the food and made the shelter to where the bonfire would be. Of course, as the book
progressed, the author made it evident to the reader that the leading group compromised
several of the boys safeties. However, by now, the older boys had become accustomed to
ruling over the younger children and were not going to give that up for anything, even
going as far as skewering one boys head onto a stick and throwing his body off a cliff. This
example shows how it probably never even crossed the boys minds to be a democracy or
be equal in order to work better together and all survive- they were used to having that
privilege over the other boys and were not going to give that up for anything.
I have often been in a class where another student does not have a home computer
or a printer, so he/ she always has to stay late after school or come in early just to do the
work the rest of the class comfortably does with laptops at desks in our own homes. I, as an
individual, always notice how this is unfair- he/ she is graded on the exact same scale as
everyone else, yet they have to put so much extra work to put out the same assignment,
purely because all the other students have a privilege he/ she does not Therefore, I have
often opened myself up to type up a paper or print something out for he/ she if he/ she ever
needs it. However, I never once have considered that my classmates and I could just give

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up our luxury of home computers (the privilege) in order to make everything fair and equal,
for we are all used to that privilege and do not want our lives to be even harder just to be
more just.
In conclusion, I agree with Martin Luther King Jr. saying individuals would give up
privileges but groups would not, and this can be supported and seen in Civil Rights
movement, The Lord of the Flies, and my personal experiences as a student.