The greatness of America is not attributed to its government but to our willingness to change as a people. Countless Americans have had the courage to stand up and exhibit peaceful resistance to wrongful situations and laws, thus America changed for the better. Peaceful resistance to laws not only provides a positive impact on a free society but it provides the change needed for a free society to always become more opportunistic for all its citizens. Dr. King is synonymous with civil disobedience and the civil rights movement, and lead the first activist movement in American history where change by peaceful resistance was preached to a nation of people. Martin Luther King gave countless speeches to angered African Americans urging
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Violence often found King and his followers, but they chose to refrain and respond with peace. In answering why Dr. King chose to use this direct action, he responded, in Letters from Birmingham Jail, “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored”. Indeed the issue could be ignored no longer in the spring of 1965, where a march for voter registration in Selma, Alabama turned violent when white supremacists brutally attacked the peaceful demonstrators. All of this was broadcast to shocked Americans nationwide. True to Dr. King's words from the Birmingham jail, the American community could no longer ignore the issue of racial inequality that took place within their “free” country. Outcry came from all across the nation and the true effect of peaceful resistance shook the segregated South on August 6th 1965 as the Voting Rights Act was signed into law, thus abolishing …show more content…
King and Gandhi made civil disobedience the method of creating change in areas across the world. Today, there are protests that take place from day to day across the United States; an act of current civil disobedience that has gained national media attention is the Dakota Access Pipeline, led by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe of South Dakota. The Sioux, in an effort to stall and eventually halt the completion of an oil pipeline that would travel beneath their tribe’s primary water source, have set up camp in a continuous protest that started in the fall. While the tribe has filed a suit on the army corps of engineers, they have taken the issue very personally and have committed to carrying out their protest even into the brutal winter months. A core group of dedicated members has now grown to thousands of supporters that support the cause daily. The tribe and its supporters have enacted the essence of peaceful resistance and that is why their cause has received national media attention. Hundreds of supports are arrested per week, and the protesters have accused police of unnecessarily harsh treatment, including the use of pepper spray on protesters and rubber bullets. When faced with government and local aggression, the Sioux and their supporters have continued their peaceful resistance, and in true Dr. King fashion, have not yet wavered in the face of physical or emotional injuries. As the Sioux fight the good fight
Violence often found King and his followers, but they chose to refrain and respond with peace. In answering why Dr. King chose to use this direct action, he responded, in Letters from Birmingham Jail, “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored”. Indeed the issue could be ignored no longer in the spring of 1965, where a march for voter registration in Selma, Alabama turned violent when white supremacists brutally attacked the peaceful demonstrators. All of this was broadcast to shocked Americans nationwide. True to Dr. King's words from the Birmingham jail, the American community could no longer ignore the issue of racial inequality that took place within their “free” country. Outcry came from all across the nation and the true effect of peaceful resistance shook the segregated South on August 6th 1965 as the Voting Rights Act was signed into law, thus abolishing …show more content…
King and Gandhi made civil disobedience the method of creating change in areas across the world. Today, there are protests that take place from day to day across the United States; an act of current civil disobedience that has gained national media attention is the Dakota Access Pipeline, led by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe of South Dakota. The Sioux, in an effort to stall and eventually halt the completion of an oil pipeline that would travel beneath their tribe’s primary water source, have set up camp in a continuous protest that started in the fall. While the tribe has filed a suit on the army corps of engineers, they have taken the issue very personally and have committed to carrying out their protest even into the brutal winter months. A core group of dedicated members has now grown to thousands of supporters that support the cause daily. The tribe and its supporters have enacted the essence of peaceful resistance and that is why their cause has received national media attention. Hundreds of supports are arrested per week, and the protesters have accused police of unnecessarily harsh treatment, including the use of pepper spray on protesters and rubber bullets. When faced with government and local aggression, the Sioux and their supporters have continued their peaceful resistance, and in true Dr. King fashion, have not yet wavered in the face of physical or emotional injuries. As the Sioux fight the good fight