Civil disobedience

Throughout history, civil disobedience has helped societies grow and accept social reforms. The case of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, is an important formal written statement for the need of social change. Civil disobedience has been a useful leveraging tactic in ways to draw attention to the perceived injustice. The injustice can be defined by the mistreatment of laws on people. In other words, unjust laws. These are laws that were developed to give power to some…

Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister and activist who led the African-American Civil Rights Movement. In 1963, he was jailed for participating in the nonviolent campaign in Birmingham, which protested against segregation and racism. In jail, he received a smuggled newspaper that contained an open letter written by white clergymen calling the campaign “unwise and untimely”. In response, King wrote a letter to them to defend his strategy of nonviolent campaigns. In this essay…

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Henry David Thoreau were both great literary figures in the United States, yet they lived in different time periods. Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” and King’s Letter to Birmingham Jail”are quite similar, in addition obtain certain differences between the texts. Both writers demonstrate each other 's audience on ways of being civilly disobedient towards their corrupt government and how to have a relationship with them. On the other hand, certain differences, both…

Thoreau’s essay is also different from King’s because he presents more than one goal. Not only does he describe the government’s unfair laws, but he also teaches his readers how and why to revolt, and tells them to bring an end to the ongoing Mexican War. Despite these differences, both Thoreau and King share strong similar beliefs of morality and justice that are clearly seen throughout the entirety of both essays. Both authors in their respective essays tell the people why and how they…

have the right to rebel. “A protest is an expression or declaration of objection to a policy,leader,cultural,political and social changes.” (Webster) There are several forms of protests, such as a public demonstration, written demonstration, civil disobedience, destructive demonstration, direct action and many more.Protest movements are effective ways of bringing about social and political change.In the past…

on shaping American culture into what it is today in the modern era. Due to its widespread effect, faith has been a big topic in the realm of American Literature and media. While imprisoned in the Birmingham jail following a repulsed non-violent civil rights movement, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. penned “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” King’s powerful letter written primarily to white Christian leaders of the South utilizes many rhetorical strategies in conjunction with the emotionally charged…

intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something. Most onlookers and activists, during the Civil Rights Movement, would agree that violence was not a route that they wanted to take. Non-violence and self-defense both center on this concept of violence. To accurately identify if self-defense and non-violence are opposite tactics defining the two concepts independently in the contexts of the Civil Rights Movement is crucial. Understanding the thinking of the men that upheld these ideals are…

Fifty- four years after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” and the world still fails to understand what is presented in his crucial text. It is extremely important that we as Americans realize that the events which took place in the mid-60s such as the lack of respect for African-Americans, and the hate that was shown to them, are still very relevant today. By simply turning on the television, picking up a newspaper, or tuning into a radio station, we are all…

Mohandas Gandhi The definition of leadership from Merriam-Webster is the power or ability to lead other people. After looking at this definition and trying to figure out if this definition fit, it didn’t quite fit who he was. Searching for the right definition of a leader, I came across moral leadership. The definition describes a moral leader is someone who aims to serve, tend to better others, a person who can be trusted, and a person who has deep morals and a sense of core ethics. There was a…

A group of students known as the Dream Act 5 practiced civil disobedience by staging a sit in inside senator McCain’s office in Tucson, Arizona in May 7, 2010. Three of the students remind me of Thoreau when he got arrested for defying the government laws for not paying his poll tax, but instead these students were switching to civil disobedience to support other students brought to the United States illegally. Henry Thoreau thought that people should live under what they believed in and not…