“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.”. This quote from Henry David Thoreau, an abolitionist writer, describes how disobedience is the only way to achieve freedom when government is corrupt (2). One kind of disobedience is civil disobedience which is defined as, “The refusal to comply with certain laws considered unjust, as a peaceful form of political protest.”(1). Two instances of civil disobedience from the civil right movement are Rosa Parks not surrendering her seat on the bus and the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Both acts of civil disobedience were effective at increasing support for the civil rights movement but they were distinct in how they did it. One act of civil disobedience was when Rosa Parks defied segregation laws by refusing to surrender her seat on the bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama. On December first of 1955, a white man entered a bus to find that the white section had run out of seats. The bus driver decided to expand the white section by another for the one man. All but one of the four people in the colored row that was being removed got up. The one who stayed in her seat was Rosa Parks. Parks later stated, “People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically… No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in”. The bus driver insisted she leave her seat to stand and Parks refused. Parks had been in conflict with that bus driver in the past for refusing to debark after paying and reenter through the back. Two officers placed Parks into custody and later, at the supreme court, she was convicted of violating segregation laws. Parks was 42 years old at the time. Parks’ arrest sparked the Montgomery bus boycott.The Montgomery Improvement Association was, in turn, created to manage the boycott. The association was run by Martin Luther King Jr. (3) Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat wasn’t the only important act of civil disobedience during the civil rights movement. Years after Rosa Parks refused to surrender her seat, a different act of civil disobedience occurred where people stood against segregation in schools and constitutional rights not being upheld. On
One hundred days after Emmett Till's murder, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on an Alabama city bus, sparking the yearlong Montgomery bus boycott. “
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, one of the leaders of the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People [NAACP] refused to give up her seat to a white person on a segregated city bus in Montgomery, Alabama, despite being reprimanded by the driver (Schulke 166). Montgomery, Alabama was known for its terrible treatment of blacks. The buses in particular had been a source of tension between the city and black citizens for many years (Schulke, 167). As a result of refusing to give up her seat, Rosa Parks was arrested. Rosa Parks' popularity among the black community, proved to be the spark that ignited the non-violent Civil Rights Movement (Norrell 2).
During the Civil Rights Movement, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King highlighted the effectiveness of peaceful resistance. When Parks refused to leave a bus seat upon demand of a white man, she was arrested for civil disobedience. Such a simple action triggered a 381-day boycott of public buses and furthered the growing movement. King later described this movement in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” where he explained the bombings that drew him to Birmingham, and how he would peacefully pursue a solution through large-scale civil disobedience. Both Parks and King peacefully revealed injustice to the public, and the violent responses from their opponents allowed the media to highlight the impacts of segregation, mainly poverty, physical threats, and verbal prejudice. Again, civil disobedience broadened social inequality, while also reducing the violence, poverty, and discrimination that African Americans experienced, increasing their involvement in modern government and the overall equality of the
As a few white passengers boarded the bus and the white sections were already full so the driver shouted back at four black people including Rosa Parks “Move y'all, I want those two seats”. As this demand was made by the driver 3 of the bus riders obeyed to what was shouted back, however Rosa Parks remained in her seat and was determined not to move. She was arrested following the bus drivers order and fined ten dollars. This, however small incited a great wave of bus boycotts which in Montgomery black people chose not to ride the bus for a period of 381 days. This still to date is known as the moment in which the civil rights movement started to gain headway. It was the will of one woman who decided it was time for black people to take a stand and from this point on Martin Luther King was assigned to take this boycott on. Although he was assigned to take this on people also felt as he was young, fresh and people had not formulated enough of an opinion of him, there was little room for him to be hated yet so he posed as the right figure to lead this. After the many days of boycotting the case of this transport issue in Alabama went to the Supreme Court. Here it was decided that segregation was declared as unconstitutional so segregation by law was no
On Thursday evening December 1, 1955, Rosa boards a Montgomery City Bus to go home after a long day working as a seamstress. She walks back to the section for blacks, and takes a seat. The law stated that they could sit there if no White people were standing. Rosa parks never liked segregation rules and has been fighting against them for more than ten years in the NAACP, but until then had never broke any of the unjust rules. As the bus stops at more places, more white people enter the bus, all the seats in the “White Only” section was filled and the bus driver orders Rosa’s row to move to the back of the bus, they all moved, accept Rosa. She was arrested and fined for violating a city regulation. This act of defiance began a movement that ended legal Segregation in America, and made her an inspiration to freedom devoted people everywhere.
Civil disobedience is present in our day to day lives. During the civil rights protests occurring in Birmingham, AL, Eugene Connor was the Commissioner of Public Safety who publicly attacked African Americans with fire hoses and dogs. The Boston Tea Party was a rebellion which led to major tax reformation. Another moment in history of disobedience would be the Civil Rights movement. Oscar Wilde claims social progress is promoted through disobedience and rebellion which is valid.
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to surrender her bus seat to a white person. Rosa Parks is quoted as saying, "I thought about Emmett Till, and I could not go back. My legs and feet were not hurting, that is a stereotype. I paid the same fare as others, and I felt violated." Her act of civil disobedience led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the emergence of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as a powerful leader in the fight for civil rights, all powerful symbols of the civil rights movement. (Crowe, n.d.)
Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat at the ‘colored section’ inside the bus to a white passenger, and this went against the customs at the time. As a result of the arrest, Montgomery black community initiated a bus boycott that lasted for more than a year.
Civil Disobedience is remarkably effective without the violence that many had thought necessary. Several famous examples include the Salt March of Mahatma Gandhi, the Civil Rights movement of Martin Luther King Jr., and even the sit-ins of the factory workers during the industrial revolution. Although, many still argue that civil
One of the most famous acts of peaceful disobedience was by Rosa Parks. Rosa Parks went against the Jim Crow laws and would not give up her seat for a white man, who was at the time her superior because she was a black woman. She was arrested because she refused. When she was arrested, it sparked the protest of all public busses that lasted over a year, which was led by Martin Luther King, Jr. This also created a court case against “Alabama’s discriminatory laws” that was taken to the
Two months after Emmett Till’s murderers were acquitted, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus, which sparked the three hundred eighty one day Montgomery bus boycott. The fight for civil rights became a mass
Because of the outcome of the Brown case a lot of African Americans took matter into their own hands and wanted to end forms of racial segregation. December 1st, 1955 Rosa Parks, a black seamstress and a NAACP activist denied giving up her seat to a white man. This caused mayhem and sparked a bus boycott due to the fact that Rosa Parks got arrested for not wanting to get up. This was a tactic that the civil rights movement leaders used to stop racial discrimination between blacks and whites in the United States. After more than a year of conflict, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the complete desegregation of Montgomery buses. (Hewitt and Lawson
Over the course of history, there has been numerous cases where people have carried out non-violent methods such as protests and direct action to fight for their rights, seeking for people of authority to take action upon their wish to make alterations. In many instances, this act of civil disobedience has been efficacious. In “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he addressed his view on civil disobedience and stated “One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” Because many leaders and average people in history have successfully used King’s belief to
On The Duty of Civil Disobedience, written by Henry David Thoreau, explains that civil disobedience is the act of standing for your beliefs even though they are against the law. Thoreau goes on to say that the government (because it is ruled by the majority) is not always right for everyone especially the individual and the minority. Over the course of American history, there have been many different groups formed for the purpose of civil disobedience. The two that I am going to focus on are the activists of the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Panthers of the Black Liberation Movement. The Civil Rights Movement began in 1954 with the case of Brown vs. the Board of Education. It was basically lead by Martin Luther King Jr.
Civil disobedience in a free society is a necessity that must remain if the ideals of freedom, democracy, and justice are to be upheld. The original idea of civil disobedience, popularized by Henry David Thoreau, was to peacefully disobey the government, in response to unjust laws, and to accept the consequences fully with no resistance, offering oneself as a martyr to advance the cause of liberty. Without the courageous individuals who offered their lives and liberty to the causes they support, our society would not have progressed to the liberties that we have been granted today. The arguably most progressive century history has recorded, the 20th century saw some of the most influential and famous examples of civil disobedience such the "Tank Man",