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Ryan Fitzpatrick

Ms. Yeaton

English 10 Honors

30 April 2018

Argument Essay

Henry David Thoreau, American writer and philosopher, once proclaimed, “the only

obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right”. By saying this,

Thoreau is commenting on an individual’s right to overrule an order or societal norm for what

they believe is the right action. Throughout history there have been countless examples of people

standing up for what they believe to be right and changing society by doing so. Three people

who show that this quote is accurate are Rosa Parks, Oskar Schindler, and Harriet Tubman.

Rosa Parks is an American icon, one known in every household because of the action she

took on December 1st, 1955, defending what she believed to be right. It is on that day that Rosa

Parks refused an order from a bus driver to give up her seat on a bus to a white person. Parks

took a stand that day, saying that, “she was tired of giving in” (Biography 1) to the segregation

and discrimination that occurred daily in the America of that era. In refusing to stand up, Parks

was arrested and forced to make bail to be released for her crime. This is in the essence of

Thoreau’s claim, that despite her action being illegal, she believed it to be the right one and

followed it through to see change in America. Her act caused the “381-day Montgomery Bus

Boycott that helped launch nationwide efforts to end segregation of public facilities” (Biography

1) and brought about permanent changes to America. It is with her own set of morals that Rosa
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Parks chose to act that day, not society’s nor the government’s, positively changing the United

States in a way still felt today.

Oskar Schindler is a German businessman who is accredited with saving the lives of over

1000 Jews during the Holocaust as well as a hero that has gone down in history for his

courageous acts. During WWII, Oskar Schindler joined the Nazi party as a businessman who

saw opportunity in the Nazi party. Despite his joining however, Schindler dictated his life not by

the rules of his oppressive Nazi government, but by his own morals. Schindler used nearly all of

his life savings and fortune to run fake businesses that enabled him to keep Jews from being sent

to concentrations camps. Having witnessed the brutality occurring towards the Jews, “Schindler

intervened repeatedly on their behalf, through bribes and personal diplomacy,” (Crowe 1) not

only risking his life, but also his business, reputation and safety. To help Jews in Nazi Germany

was a serious risk, but it was one that Schindler decided not doing would harm his moral

character. For the entirety of the war, Schindler aided Jews in staying out of concentration

camps, truly doing not what the Nazi party told him was right, but instead what he believed to be

right, saving more than a thousand Jews in the process, and forever cementing himself in history

as a hero.

Harriet Tubman, a former slave from Maryland, ran the Underground Railroad to help

escaped slaves reach safety, and is credited with the freedom of hundreds of slaves due to her

courageous acts during the 1850’s. Tubman is quoted declaring, “’Mah people mus’ go free,’”

(History.com Staff) and this declaration of hers echoed into action as she returned to the South

nineteen times to take family members and other slaves to the North where they could seek

refuge. Tubman was so successful as a conductor that the bounty on her head “eventually went

as high as forty thousand dollars” (History.com Staff 1) showing that her actions reverberated
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strongly throughout the revolutionary South. It was her actions that helped pave the way a free-

nation in which people were treated equally without bias based on their ethnicity. Due to brave

people like Harriet Tubman that stand up against what they are being told is right or natural that

the United States is the way it is today.

Henry David Thoreau claimed that “the only obligation which I have a right to assume is

to do at any time what I think right”. It is this thinking that paved the way for many brilliant,

brave, and influential people like Rosa Parks, Oskar Schindler, and Harriet Tubman to change

the way our world looked in their times. These individuals stood up, and remained seated for, the

abolishment of slavery, desegregation of a country, and the saving of over 1000 Jews from the

horrors of the Holocaust. Had these outstanding individuals not have come forward and acted on

what they thought to be right, many people would have suffered, and the world would look very

different than it does today.

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Works Cited

Crowe, David M. “Oskar Schindler.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, United States

Holocaust Memorial Museum,

www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005787.

History.com Staff. “Harriet Tubman.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 2009,

www.history.com/topics/black-history/harriet-tubman.

“Rosa Parks.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 27 Feb. 2018,

www.biography.com/people/rosa-parks-9433715.