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Civil Resistance: A Channel for Change Civil disobedience has long been the subject of historical and sociological debates around the world. It is a polarizing topic because it blurs the lines between morality and legality. Some view it through a strictly black-and-white lens while others identify grey areas and believe that grey areas and specific circumstances justify the breaking of laws. Watershed moments in history, however, serve to primarily advocate the use of civil disobedience and nonviolent action as a means of social change and reform. Although many argue that it disturbs the peace and order of society, peaceful resistance positively impacts a free society by forcing a confrontation with an unjust law and replacing an attitude …show more content…
Martin Luther King, Jr., used peaceful disobedience to combat racist violence and injustice in 1960s America. While imprisoned in a jail in Birmingham in 1963 for leading public demonstrations, King wrote a letter that famously became known as “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. In this critique of the justice system in America, King attributes the effectiveness of civil resistance to the inherent invasive nature of it. King writes that nonviolent direct resistance creates “such a crisis and [fosters] such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue”. Although critics argue that nonviolent resistance like peaceful protesting or sit-ins disturbs tranquility in society, King and his success in the Civil Rights Movement prove that although civil disobedience disturbs the peace in society, it does so only to elicit lasting change on issues, not to create chaos or unrest. It “seeks… to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored”, which forces society to face the issue and create plans of action to solve the problem. King explains that nonviolent resistance creates “constructive… tension which is necessary for growth”. Nonviolent action/civil disobedience finds success as a result of its inherent tendency to create tension, and while tension is uncomfortable, it is a requisite for lasting change. …show more content…
The Indian peoples struggled for independence from Britain beginning in the late-19th century and continuing until the mid-20th century, and Indians’ attempts to retaliate failed until leader Mahatma Gandhi emerged and put in action various nonviolent means of winning back freedom. Dr. Lester R. Kurtz, professor of sociology at George Mason University, writes that Gandhi’s tactics in civil resistance “seriously undermined British authority and united India’s population in a movement for independence under the leadership of the Indian National Congress”. Gandhi’s efforts both diminished the British threat and also united the Indian people. In his writings on nonviolence, Gandhi explains the benefits of nonviolence in terms of humanitarianism. He writes, “Non-violence… is a more active and more real fighting against wickedness than retaliation whose very nature is to increase wickedness… I seek entirely to blunt the edge of the tyrant's sword… by disappointing his expectation that I would be offering physical resistance”. Gandhi refused to fight violence and oppression with a “sharper-edged weapon” and instead used nonviolence. Ultimately, Gandhi’s tactics and his resolution to promote benevolence and peace proved successful–India won complete independence from Britain after their
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested on April 12, 1963, in Birmingham, for having a protest without a proper permit. On the exact day King was arrested, eight clergymen from Alabama wrote a letter called “A Call for Unity.” The letter called for termination of civil activities and demonstrations and designated King an “outsider” and saying that outsiders were the problems in Birmingham and not the blacks that are from there. On April 16 King wrote “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, which was his responds to his fellow clergymen. He wrote the letter as a means to convince the clergymen and the white moderate that the nonviolent demonstrations that had got him arrested, were a necessity and to enlighten them on why the segregation laws in the southern states needed to be changed. In “Letter from Birmingham Jail” King uses logos, pathos, and ethos to persuade the clergymen and convince them in assisting him in putting an end to segregation laws of blacks in Birmingham, Alabama.
In the touching, influential letter, Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. responds to the white, Alabama clergymen who condemned his movement as “unwise and untimely” (1) and delineates his motives for traveling to Birmingham, where whites consider him an “outsider” (1). Hoping to express his ambition of nonviolent protest in a sympathetic, deferential manner, he implores the white clergy to join the struggle for Civil Rights. Throughout the letter, he addresses and disputes each negative argument by the whites, testifying his position unpretentiously, yet confidently. With aptitude, poise, and humility, King establishes his motives for coming to such an unwelcoming environment. In his heart-rending letter, King’s coherent logos, stimulating rhetorical questions, and accentuating parallel structure express to the white moderates who criticized his actions that nonviolent, direct protest is not only essential, but also inevitable to contain agitated hostility and to assume relative peace.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the leader of a peaceful movement to end segregation in the United States this mission led him in 1963 to Birmingham, Alabama where officials and leaders in the community actively fought against desegregation. While performing sit-ins, marches and other nonviolent protests, King was imprisoned by authorities for violating the strict segregation laws. While imprisoned King wrote a letter entitled “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, in which he expresses his disappointment in the clergy, officials, and people of Birmingham. This letter employed pathos to argue that the leaders and ‘heroes’ in Birmingham during the struggle were at fault or went against their beliefs.
Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote an argumentative persuasive essay, the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” on April 16, 1963. King had written this letter to address and respond to the criticism made by the white clergymen. The letter was an approach to end racism and hatred in a non-violent manner. The non-violent movement was organized by King and his pro-black organization called “The Southern Christian Leadership Conference”.
“No radical change on the plane of history is possible without crime,” This quote from Hermann Keyserling is just one of many statements that help describe the meaning and true raw power of Civil Disobedience. Civil disobedience as defined by Merriam Webster is the “refusal to obey governmental demands or commands especially as a nonviolent and usually collective means of forcing concessions from the government”. The most promising and understandable of the definitions of Civil Disobedience would be that given to us by Gandhi from India “Compassion in the form of respectful disagreement”. Even the Veterans Fast for Life from here in the United States must agree when saying, “when leaders act contrary to conscience, we must act contrary to leaders.” To understand why civil disobedience is so important in our lives you must first look into your heart and realize that the integrity of mankind has no need of rules.
Martin Luther King was a huge figure in the civil rights movements, while protesting a non-violent protest he was arrested and taken to Birmingham Jail. He is writing to his clergymen, describing the situation he is in. King says “Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States” Martin Luther King Jr. Explains Nonviolent Resistance in [Reading the American Past] edited by Michael Johnson (New York: Bedford/St. Martin, 2012), 255. King goes on to describe how Birmingham is a very segregated place with high police brutality and the most unsolved cases on bombing on negro’s houses. The letter King writes demonstrates that times for African Americans are very poor and need to improve. King relates African Americans to “Christian who were willing to face hungry lions and chopping blocks before submitting to laws of the Roman Empire” (Martin Luther King Jr. Explains Nonviolent Resistance, 257). King ends his letter by asking for the negroes who do these nonviolent protests to be recognized for their
“Letter from Birmingham Jail” is a letter written inside Birmingham Jail on April 16, 1963, by Martin Luther King, Jr. The letter defends the strategy of nonviolent resistance to racism and is addressed to several clergymen who had written an open letter criticizing the actions of Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference during their protests in Birmingham. In this letter, Dr. King tells the clergymen that he was upset about their criticisms and that he wishes to address their concerns. He used strong, persuasive, and reasoning tones to try to influence the reader to agree with him. Martin Luther King, Jr. provides a valid argument using logos, pathos, ethos, and kairos
From the onset of man fighting for freedom or his beliefs, the question has always been whether one person can make a difference using words rather than wars. Philosophically, the concept of civil disobedience would appear to be an ineffective weapon against political injustice; history however has proven it to repeatedly be one of the most powerful weapons of the common man. Martin Luther King Jr. looked at the way African Americans were treated in the United States and saw an inequality. By refusing to pay his taxes and subsequently being imprisoned for a night, Henry David Thoreau demonstrated his intolerance for the American government. Under British rule, India remained oppressed until Mohandas Gandhi, with his doctrine of non-violence lead the country to freedom.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” was written while he was “confined in the Birmingham city jail.” His letter was a direct response to the eight Alabama clergymen who insisted that King’s use of nonviolent direct action was unlawful. The clergymen questioned his method of protests even though they had similar goals as King. In his letter, King illustrates the hardships and injustices that African Americans in the United States were enduring during the mid-twentieth century; doing so allows King to justify the nonviolent actions of his fellow protestors. King uses the classical appeals of ethos, pathos, and logos, along with his rhetorical situation, to support his claims about the racial discrimination and segregation in the United States.
applies the principles of civil disobedience in his procedure of a nonviolent campaign. According to him, “In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification; and direct action” (King 262). The first step, which is “collection of the facts,” clarify whether the matter requires civil disobedience from the society (King 262). The second step, “negotiation,” is the step where civil disobedience is practiced in a formal way; to change an unjust law, both sides come to an agreement that respects each other’s demand, (King 262). Should the second step fail, comes the “self-purification,” in which the nonconformists question their willingness to endure the consequences without any retaliation that follow enactment of civil disobedience (King 262). The fourth and the last step, “direct action,” is to execute it; coordinated actions such as protests or strikes to pressure no one, but the inexpedient government to conform to them, and advocate their movement, and thus persuade others to promote the same belief (King 262). This procedure along with principles of civil disobedience is one justifiable campaign that systematically attains its objective. King not only presents, but inspires one of the most peaceful ways to void unjust
Martin Luther King, Jr. advocated nonviolence to suppress oppression in his essay, “The Power of Nonviolent Action.” King's factual and reasoned approach is intended to win his adversaries over by appealing to their consciences. King realized that the best strategy to liberate African-Americans and gain them justice was to use nonviolent forms of resistance. He wanted to eliminate the use of violence as a means to manage and establish cooperative ways of interacting. Moreover, King states that the “oppressed people must organize themselves into a militant and nonviolent mass movement” in order to achieve the goal of integration. The oppressed must “convince the oppressors that all he seeks is justice, for both himself and the white man” (King, 345). Furthermore, King agreed with Gandhi that if a law is unjust, it is the duty of the oppressed to break the law, and do what they believe to be right. Once a law is broken, the person must be willing to accept the ...
In “Letter from Birmingham Jail” Dr. Martin Luther King brings attention to the reality of racial inequality in the 1960s. King writes this letter in response to clergymen addressing their apprehensions regarding the timing of the nonviolence demonstrations. The letter addressees specific arguments presented in the clergymen’s letter and his direct response. King’s goal in writing this letter is to convince the clergymen that his strategies are right and just. In this section, King rebuts the allegation made by the clergymen that his actions were untimely. In his counter argument, King uses repetition, metaphors, emotional appeals in order to persuade the audience to support his cause.
From the Boston Tea Party of 1773, the Civil Rights Movement and the Pro-Life Movement of the 1960s, to the Tea Party Movement and Occupy Wall Street Movement of current times, “those struggling against unjust laws have engaged in acts of deliberate, open disobedience to government power to uphold higher principles regarding human rights and social justice” (DeForrest, 1998, p. 653) through nonviolent protests. Perhaps the most well-known of the non-violent protests are those associated with the Civil Rights movement. The movement was felt across the south, yet Birmingham, Alabama was known for its unequal treatment of blacks and became the focus of the Civil Rights Movement. Under the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, African-Americans in Birmingham, began daily demonstrations and sit-ins to protest discrimination at lunch counters and in public facilities. These demonstrations were organized to draw attention to the injustices in the city. The demonstrations resulted in the arrest of protesters, including Martin Luther King. After King was arrested in Birmingham for taking part in a peaceful march to draw attention to the way that African-Americans were being treated there, their lack of voter rights, and the extreme injustice they faced in Alabama he wrote his now famous “Letter from Birmingham.”
Peaceful protests fall under this idea. Peaceful protests are a way to express what needs to be taken to legislation in order to improve the society as a whole. In Martin Luther King Jr.'s case, he spread the word and used peaceful protests in order to gain equal rights for the African American population. King's peaceful protests entailed several different movements, the most notable being the Montgomery Bus Boycott. In this protest, King gathered an enormous following of African Americans who were fed up with the social norm of African Americans giving up their seats on the bus to give them to white people who want to ride on the bus. King was sent to the Birmingham jail, where he wrote his famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," when he was peacefully protesting segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. Martin Luther King Jr. used various nonviolent rallies because he believed peaceful protest is the most effective weapon against an unjust society. The best way to obtain justice is to fight injustice with peace. Fighting evil with evil will never be successful, but using peace to fight the evils of the world is the best way to accomplish justice for
Clarence Darrow was once quoted as saying,”As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no man objected and no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever”. Mr. Darrow understood the need for citizens to challenge the rule of law if following it compromises one’s conscience. This approach known as civil disobedience has been an important tool to create change for hundreds of years. But, even now the positive impact of civil disobedience in free societies is displayed clearly by the benefits of being able to display dedication, avoid bloodshed, and retain your morality.