Speech On Civil Disobedience

In this life, many hope for peace, but not many try to achieve it. According to Martin Luther King Jr’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, there are many ways to achieve this, but the best possible course of action would be through nonviolent direct action, which includes but is not limited to: peaceful protest, sit-ins and civil disobedience. In King’s letter, he proclaims his reasoning behind nonviolent direct action, including: the concept that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” (par. 4), extremism can be used positively (par. 22), and the fact that “oppressed people will not stay oppressed forever” (par. 24). King uses literary devices including ethos, logos, and pathos to prove and reaffirm that which he is trying to convey.

In Martin Luther King Jr’s “Letter from Birmingham jail”, King talks about his imprisonment for his involvement in a nonviolent protest and defends his rights and moral grounds for organizing nonviolent protest activities. In this essay, I will look at his views on nonviolent protest and how they differ from todays violent protests.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a key figure in the civil rights movements that took place in the 1950s and 1960s. The “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” is an open letter written by King defending nonviolent resistance against racism. The letter argued that people have a moral responsibility to break unjust and unethical laws. The letter also stresses themes of unity among brothers in order to overcome racism. I will argue in support of King’s stance that citizens are morally justified in breaking unjust laws and that openly and responsibly opposing unjust laws is itself a duty of every citizen.

In the modern age of America, there are many people who have read and abided by the beliefs of civil disobedience. Civil disobedience is a philosophy created by Henry Thoreau that states one must not conform to certain laws for a variety of reasons, which was also an ideology utilized by Martin Luther King Jr. The world has witnessed many acts of disobedience from the masses, and have thus portrayed the idea that this belief still operates successfully. The ideology that surrounds civil disobedience also strongly influences the individual in a particular society, which also depicts the principles of this belief have adjusted to the modern world. In the new age of America, the beliefs of Thoreau and King are still prevalent and found in society due to the influence it has on movement that brings change; thus, illustrating that American citizens commonly refer and utilize this belief.

In Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” and in Martin Luther King Jr’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, both address the responsibility of the individual to stand up for their beliefs and to defy any idea that goes against their consciences or their moral standards. From this defiance, Thoreau states the need for civil disobedience. King later uses this term to respond to the white moderates and to express the need for direct action, as does Thoreau. The idea of civil disobedience expressed by Henry David Thoreau and Martin Luther King Jr are evident in today’s nation through their methods , however, these beliefs can be spread further as the nation progresses.

In King’s mind, being civilly disobedient means going against, or protesting, unjust laws or social norms for the betterment of society. In order to be civilly disobedient, one must always stay true to their beliefs, take responsibility for any and all their actions, be open to public criticism, and be non-violent in their executions. The goal to King is that, “it seeks so to dramatize the issue that can no longer be ignored” (King 37). To King, nonviolence campaigns are what forces people to negotiation. Its strain allows people to hear the voices of equality and forces them to negotiation. King states that, “As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise,” which is a sign that without direct action from the oppressed, nothing will change within society (King 36). This nonviolence to King is “necessary for growth” for it helps the oppressed to rise up against unjust laws to the heights understanding and brotherhood (King 37).

Dr. King was looking for support from members of society in order to create an effective change in society’s ethics. Moreover, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s large audience and public movement used nonviolent tactics, such as sit-ins, marches, and freedom rides to put the Civil Rights Movement in action. Before directly acting against the law, Dr. King had used other means to try to obtain justice for all; he used the four basic steps of a nonviolent campaign to decide how he would approach this cultural issue of racism: determination of whether injustices exist, negotiation, self-purification, and direct action (King 1). After the first three steps of his nonviolent campaign proved to be ineffective, he decided to seek direct action through a large demonstration of civil disobedience. Dr. King had a tremendous impact on the segregation issue in not just Birmingham, but the entire country, by leading the Civil Rights Movement, which eventually helped influence anti-segregation legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that affected a massive population of the entire country. Although Dr. King’s journey ended in his assassination, his relentless passion for equal rights was empowering to many and helped to create a more just society.

Nelson Mandela said, “When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.” One such man, Frederick Douglas, wrote “From What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? An Address Delivered in Rochester, New York, on 5 July 1852.” He argues that even though blacks and whites went to fight in the war to be free, that promise was not kept to the blacks. Douglass persuades a northern, white audience, to oppose slavery and favor abolition. Douglass wants to remind abolitionist and White Americans that July 4 was not a celebration for slaves and former slaves. Independence Day only made slaves remember that they were made promises for freedom that were not kept.

Have you ever felt a rule you had to follow was unjust? Have you ever felt your moral instinct tell you not to follow it? Prominent figures in American history, Martin Luther King Jr. and Henry David Thoreau, felt this way and decided to not follow the rules imposed on them by indulging in “civil disobedience”. Civil disobedience is the act of peacefully disobeying laws or customs with the purpose of combating moral injustice. This form of protest has proven to be quite effective in making change in history. In “Civil Disobedience” and the “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, both Thoreau and King Jr. write their justification for their actions as well as their feelings regarding the particular disputed

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a protester and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement, greatly known for his use of nonviolent forms of demonstration. On a specific occasion, King was arrested for leading a peaceful protest as part of the Birmingham Campaign, which attempted to bring national awareness to the gruesome treatment endured by blacks. While in jail, King replies to the clergyman’s remarks of him being a foreign agitator in his “Letter from a Birmingham jail,” passionately defending the actions he took. The clergymen accused King of being an extremist, as they saw his relentless protesting and civil disobedience as a threat to a stable political and social system. In paragraphs 27-32, King attempts to persuade the

“One may well ask,” wrote Martin Luther King, Jr. in his famed 1963 manifesto Letter from Birmingham Jail, “‘how can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?’ ” That question is crucial for those who, like King, break the law in the name of greater liberty. The civil rights leader, having been arrested for parading without a permit during a protest against against the segregation and oppression which defined the city of Birmingham, Alabama, saw the answer as simple. “There are just laws,” he wrote, “and there are unjust laws.

Henry David Thoreau’s Influence on Modern Civil Disobedience Civil disobedience, as defined by Meriam Webster, is the refusal to obey laws as a way of forcing the government to do or change something. The United States was founded in part by civil disobedience, such as refusing to pay British taxes or house British troops. It is natural that such a country would cultivate a man such as the author Henry David Thoreau. His monumental essay “Civil Disobedience” was instrumental in inspiring some of the most influential movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Examples of civil disobedience and peaceful protests such as Gandhi’s Salt March, Martin Luther King Jr.’s Civil Rights Movement, and Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers Union

Not only were many laws changed and created, but even more were broken in an attempt to better our once unjust society. Martin Luther King Jr., arguably the most influential leader of this movement, was an avid supporter of civil disobedience during this era. He participated in countless sit-ins and protests, including the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1956, in which he and almost one hundred other activists were arrested for peacefully protesting discrimination in the Montgomery public transit system. In “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, written in 1963 after he was arrested for partaking in a nonviolent protest, King offers explanation as to why he practices civil disobedience and what he hopes to achieve in doing so. In this letter, King admits, “In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law…that would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty”. However, he also stated that in this fight, it is necessary to “[stand] up for what is best in the American…thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence”. In his words, civil disobedience is more than ignorance of law; it is just one of the necessary measures that must be taken to restore equality in a

Henry David Thoreau was an American writer and protester, who wrote the influential essay “Civil Disobedience”. In his essay, he advocates for citizens to protest against government actions that they deem unjust and to stand up for one’s rights, putting morals before law,

Dr. Martin Luther King Junior is perhaps the most famous proponent of civil disobedience, matched only by Mahatma Gandhi. Doctor King, in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, explains simply that “I am in Birmingham because injustice is here.” Where there is injustice, there must be progress for a society to remain free. And for there to be progress, there must be change within that society. Because violence almost never fails to set back the progress and freedom of a society, peacefully resisting laws that oppress citizens catches the eyes of the nation and can be one of the only ways to inspire true