Examples Of Peaceful Resistance In Civil Disobedience

Peaceful resistance to laws positively impacts a free society. Even in a democracy there are unjust laws, the question comes down to how we handle these laws. Should we be content to obey these laws, or should we try to change them? Most people in a democracy would agree with the second course as the best. There is a right to "revolution" against injustice and one must refuse to support something that is wrong. People should try to change these laws one way to do that is through peaceful resistance.

Henry David Thoreau wrote Civil Disobedience, in Civil Disobedience Thoreau tells a story about how in protest of slavery, he refused to pay taxes and as a result ended up spending a night in jail. Thoreau explained that this protest was preferable

to advocating for reform from within the government. He thought this because the entrenched majorities make it almost impossible for other people to pursue justice as they see it. These firmly established and unlikely to change majorities are still around today they still make it very hard for minorities to pursue justice as they see fit. In modern times we can peacefully protest just like Henry David Thoreau. These small protests are very important: "For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once done well is done for ever." So matter what you are protesting or how small the protest may be peaceful protest will positively impact a free society. However, the majority of people, rather than protesting simply talk emptily. If people were to risk action, to risk not fitting the social norms, to even risk imprisonment like Henry David Thoreau, then change would occur.
Peaceful resistance to laws through protests, rallies, and strikes have positively impacted free society throughout history.

One example of peaceful resistance positively impacting free society is the Suffrage Parade held in 1913. It shared the voices of over 5,000 courageous women speaking out for the right to equal political participation. The women's suffrage movement was an example of peaceful resistance to American women not having the right to be as politically involved as American men. This resistance led to the nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution which said, that the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Another example of how peaceful resistance to laws has positively impacted a free society is the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott . Rosa Parks,an African American woman, refused to give up her seat for white passenger on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She was then incarcerated for violating the Jim Crow laws. Her defiant act symbolized greater civil rights, and was a demonstration against segregation. A year later the Unites States Supreme Court ruled that segregation on public buses was unconstitutional. Cesar Chavez and the California Grape protest is another example of peaceful resistance to laws positively impacting society. Cesar Chavez led a five year strike in Delano, California to demand minimum wage for underpaid and overworked, primarily Filipino workers. This caused more than seventeen million American's to boycott California Grapes, helping to secure unions, better wages, and security for farm workers. Chavez also advocated for peaceful boycotts, protests and hunger strikes which led to legislative changes to end the exploitative abuse of America's Farm workers in the late 1960s. These are just three examples of how nonviolent resistance to laws has positively impacted a free

society.
Currently there are peaceful protests going on against police brutality held in major cities such as San Francisco, Denver, Chicago, and Baton Rouge. There are some nonviolent protests against the 2016 presidential election, specifically against Donald Trump winning the presidential election. These two current resistances are not necessarily resistant to laws and not always peaceful however, just as Thoreau said: "what is once done well is done for ever", these protests will impact the American free society.
Peaceful resistance to laws will and has positively impacted free society. When it is clear that there are unjust laws people need to not simply talk about them but need to take action. Through peaceful resistance to those laws a positive change will impact that free society.