| Completely Different : Could you come down off your soap box please? |
 March 09, 2012 By Elizabeth Gross elizabethgross@geringcitizen.com |
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 We all know that person; the one with the cause, the chip on their shoulder, who wants you to see everything their way. No matter the movement they seem to jump up on their metaphorical soap box to tell the world what they are doing wrong. While some people are worse than others, everyone has had a time when they feel so passionately about something that they have to let the world know about it. Some take the time to listen, while others may roll their eyes and tell you to “get off your soap box.” During my first year of college, I became more political and passionate about the world around me. My friends used to always joke that I would one day be in the middle of some large protest with a megaphone, standing on some crate. When I graduated from high school, I actually told people that someone needed to get me a soap box, a wooden crate I could take with me, so whenever I felt the need to tell the world how I felt, I could jump up on my soap box. Lately I became curious about where this phrase came from. Why a soapbox? There really is no exact origin of the phrase. It is an idiom that came into our culture and just stuck. The soap box itself does in fact have a history. In the early 1900s soap was delivered to retailers in large wooden crates. After the soap was unloaded, the boxes were discarded in the alleyway. The construction of the box was very sturdy. This made wonderful platforms for street corner entertainers and public speakers. American children would take these old boxes, craft four wheels and create a makeshift car. According to the Massachuts State Historical Society, soapbox orators provided education and entertainment for people of limited means, recruited members for the labor and suffrage movements and other causes and campaigns. The act of speaking on a soap box was referred to as “soapboxing.” Soap box performers were needed during the Industrial Revolution. The speaker’s job was to rally and educate their workers on what they had felt at the time was unfair work conditions. A “soap boxer” had to be a talented performer. They had to be quick on their feet and able to turn what could possibly be a hostile crowd to work in their favor. If they couldn’t get the crowd rallied in their favor, many soap boxers where chased off by a crowd of angry people. As time went on the soap box concept stayed the same but the protests have changed. During the civil rights movement of the 1960s many protestors used soapboxes to rally against racism. Layfette Park in front of the White House is now known as the Citizens Soap Box. Layfette Park saw its first group of protestors in the 1920s during the women’s suffrage movement. In 1916, women pitched in front of the White House demanding that there be a committee dedicated to help gain women the right to vote. By 1920, that committee was created and women won their right to vote. After the attack on protestors in Alabama during the Civil Rights movement many people gathered at Layfette Park and performed a sit in. Their mission was to get President Johnson to agree to send troops to protect the protestors in Alabama. During the late 1960s and early ‘70s, Layfette Park was also witness to Mayday of 1971, a protest that threatened to shut down the government completely, making it hard to function. The idea of the protest was to put more pressure on the Nixon administration to end the war in Vietnam. This protest led to the largest mass arrest in the history of the United States when police arrested 12,614 protestors. In the 1970s and ‘80s Layfette became the protesting ground of the nuclear disarmament movement. When Roe vs. Wade was signed into law, many members of the anti- abortion movement gathered to protest the decision. When the Occupy Wall Street movement started, it was the first time in many years that people took to the street to express their opinion. What makes this movement different from the ones before it was that it was able to use technology to get their message across. Even though technology has evolved, the need to stand up and express our opinion never went away. Today, many people “get on their soapbox” and express their opinion via blogging. If you do a Google search on “my soapbox” you will get over 23,600,000 results. A majority of these websites are blogs or columns from newspapers. Each of these blogs has become a digital soapbox, still capturing the spirit of their wooden crate counterparts. I guess the reason no one can give a certain history of the phrase is because the soap box is really a symbol. It is a reminder of our right to free speech. Whether you hit the streets to express your opinion, or write in an online forum or blog, it is your right. The right to free speech is an essential freedom our founding fathers wanted for us. So if anyone ever tells you to get off your soap box, take it as a compliment. If you have ever spoken out instead of staying silent, you have the power to change the world. And if you have something to say, speak up. In our ever-changing world, we need your voice. |
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