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Essay Civil Disobedience

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Civil Disobedience History, as Karl Marx suggest, is defined by human suffering. When a man is oppressed, his natural recours is rebellion. Most ost restiance movements of the past incorporated violenve. Violence has been a mean to an end for centurys. Even today our lives are chronicled through violence and human suffering. However, a paradox ensues when revolutionaries use violence to free themselves from oppression, as a mean to an end. By replacing violence with violence, you are only contuining a destructive cycle that can in no way liberate everybody. It oppresses the oppressor and depresses the depressed. Martin Luther King jr. sought to remedy this unhealthy cycle by prescribing a new approach to rebellion. Not only did he …show more content…

Blacks were rent from their native Africa and forced to exist as slaves. The treatment of these people not only decimated their freedom but demeaned their humanity. Slave owners whipped and beat the slaves if the tried to escape and black slave girls were raped by their masters. Some refused to accept such oppression and began to rebel. Nat Turner, who is heralded as a martyr, rebelled against the white slave owners of the south by walking from plantation to plantation massacring the owners and their family’s. Even today, his martyrdom is vividly recounted in elementary educations black history courses. However, what is not often remembered is the fierce backlash that ensued due to the violent nature of his rebellion. Violence and discrimination continued to plague Black Americans even after the Civil war. They were lynched, their homes were burned, and they were terrorized by white supremacists who refused to accept the outcome of the war. Blacks did not sit by idly and watch, there are many reports of black militant groups organizing and forming to fight for civil rights. The problem was these groups incorporated violence in their movement, which as a result had violent reproductions. By the 1950’s, Blacks had seemingly come a long way from their years of slavery. They could vote, hold a job, and even go to public school. Many whites believed that they had undisputedly given Black

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