The Importance of Self-

Help
Uddeysha Kumar, Luis Ramirez, Jovanh Pham
Big Idea
The way to resist is to break the silence- the way to resist is to be engaged. Self help is
crucial when the system is against you.

Why is it important? Relevant?

What is the main purpose/idea?

Thomas Holt
Self-help was essential to black education during the early years after the war, because state and federal
efforts were either nonexistent, limited, or undependable(Holt, Thomas Knowledge is Power: The Black Struggle for Literacy. The Right to
Literacy, Andrea A. Lunsford, Helene Moglen, and James Slevin, eds. New York: MLA, 1990. 95).
Martin Luther King Jr.
We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a
means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community(King, Martin Luther, Jr. Letter from
Birmingham Jail. I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches that Changed the World, editor James M. Washington, Harper, 1992. 86.)
Sherman Alexie
I throw my weight against their locked doors. The door holds. I am smart. I
am arrogant. I am lucky. I am trying to save our lives (Alexie, paragraph 8).
(http://www.umsl.edu/~alexanderjm/SupermanandMebyAlexie.pdf)
Gloria E. Anzalda

So, if you want to really hurt me, talk badly about my language.
Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity - I am my language.
Until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself.
(Anzaldua, page 39)
The influence of self-help today