Freedom for All

Equality does not exist. When black people gained the right to citizenship in the United States, they did not have any basic rights. In the 1960s, revolutions began in an effort to obtain the same rights everybody else had. Lily, the protagonist of Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, lives her adolescent life in this time with her abusive father T. Ray and her mother figure Rosaleen. While Rosaleen hopes to have the same rights that white people have, Lily hopes to obtain the freedom that came with adulthood. As they both took action for their goals, Black Americans in the 1960s also took action in the hopes that they would someday be given the rights denied to them. These events relate with each other by oppressing groups of people who seek equal status with everyone else. Kidd parallels Lily’s and Rosaleen’s protests with the protests witnessed during the Civil Rights Movement in order to highlight society’s longing for equality.

Kidd emphasizes humankind’s desire for freedom by mirroring the events of Lily’s and Rosaleen’s lives with the events taking place throughout the Civil Rights Movement. African Americans lived a life of oppression during the 1960s. When this segregation restricted black people from living freely, they began to rebel against their oppressors. For example, Lily and Rosaleen went on a trip to register Rosaleen to vote, when they encounter some racists. After the racists torment her based on her race, “Rosaleen lifted her snuff jug… and calmly poured it across the tops of the men’s shoes, moving her hand in little loops like she was writing her name” (Kidd 32). Like Rosa Parks, whose refusal to forfeit her bus seat sparked a public outcry, Rosaleen disrupts the balance between black people and white ...

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...de to keep her family relations strong. However, once T. Ray started to destroy her mother’s reputation, Lily could not handle the conflict anymore. This situation gave her confidence to defy her father. Moreover, Lily already plotted to escape her father. Because she formed a plan so quickly, readers can assume that Lily had put some thought into an escape plan. After all, Lily only wants her freedom, just like how Rosaleen wanted her rights, and how African Americans in the United States wanted their rights. People kept them all from having something that they wanted, and they all struggled to obtain it.

Works Cited

Bass, S. Jonathan. "Letter from Birmingham Jail." Encyclopedia of Alabama. 9 Nov. 2007. Web. 30 Jan. 2010. .

Kidd, Sue Monk. The Secret Life Of Bees. New York: Penguin, 2003. Print.