Human rights are not a privilege the rights are inherited by all humans’ beings despite nationality, residency, gender, beliefs, religion, language, or any status that may describe you. Everyone is entitled to their rights, rights are all indivisible, independent and interrelated. Thomas Jefferson declaration of independence states that all men are created equal and everyone has certain unalienable rights that no man or government should violate. Including the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Jefferson makes it crystal clear that when a government fails to protect your basic right, it is only right and your duty as a society to overthrow such government. Malcom X creates a similar argument in his speech, The Ballot or the …show more content…
When a government takes away natural rights or creates a misuse of their power. The government has caused a causable reason to take action and overthrow, or in Jefferson situation, separate themselves from that particular government. The Declaration of Independence contends that although the power to rebel is a right, the nature of people dictates that people will not go ahead and practice such actions, preferring to suffer than rebel in most situations, “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.” In Jefferson theories the colonies, and African American people in Malcom X’s situation, are justified to abolish or separate themselves from their government. Due to people nature to not be rebalance, Malcom became the catalyst to the change. He noted that particular year was election year, 1964, "when all of the white political crooks will be right back in your and my community ... with their false promises which they don 't intend to keep". Creating an atmosphere that they no longer will turn the other cheek any longer. He acted as a warning to the politicians, if the government failed to accommodate the African American people, the politicians would make violence inevitable. Malcom warned and predicted that if their rights were not given to them, there would be protect, a march on Washington. But this march would not be like the 1963 March on Washington, which happen to be peaceful structured and integrated, the new march would be what he described as an all-black army followed by a one-way ticket. The situation was simple, “The Ballot or the Bullet” and “it 's time for Negroes to defend
As much as Locke would have loved in a world absent of any semblance of government, he recognized that in the state of nature there are “evils that are bound to follow from men’s being judges in their own cases, and government is to be the remedy for this” (Locke 80). Thus, if the government does not fulfill its central obligation to citizens there almost is not a purpose for government to exist. Malcolm X and millions of other black Americans had seen the government neglect to live up to its purpose of protecting all people countless times, meaning in a sense they “have never seen democracy…When we open our eyes today and look around America, we see America not through the eyes of someone who has enjoyed the fruits of Americanism, we see America through the eyes of someone who has been the victim of Americanism” (X 79). Fundamentally, the Locke-esque logic he uses forms the basis for his provocative statement that he does not even feel like a mere citizen in America. Malcom X’s sentiments were echoed by black Americans across the country, but he criticized Martin Luther King Jr’s supporters for not fully recognizing “the government has failed us, you can’t deny that. Anytime you live in the twentieth century, 1964, and you walkin' around here singing ‘We Shall Overcome,’ the government has failed
Recently you have received a letter from Martin Luther King Jr. entitled “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” In Dr. King’s letter he illustrates the motives and reasoning for the extremist action of the Civil Rights movement throughout the 1960’s. In the course of Dr. King’s letter to you, he uses rhetorical questioning and logistical reasoning, imagery and metaphors, and many other rhetorical devices to broaden your perspectives. I am writing this analysis in hopes you might reconsider the current stance you have taken up regarding the issues at hand.
Justice is often misconceived as injustice, and thus some essential matters that require more legal attentions than the others are neglected; ergo, some individuals aim to change that. The principles of civil disobedience, which are advocated in both “Civil Disobedience” by Henry David Thoreau and “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King Jr. to the society, is present up to this time in the U.S. for that purpose.
In “From Notes on the State of Virginia,” Thomas Jefferson includes some proposed alterations to the Virginia Laws and discusses some differences between blacks and whites. First, he describes one of the proposed revisions regarding slavery: All slaves born after the enactment of the alteration will be freed; they will live with their parents till a certain age, then be nurtured at public disbursement and sent out of state to form their own colonies such that intermarrying and conflicts can be avoided between blacks and whites. Next, Jefferson indicates some physical differences between blacks and whites, including skin color, hair, amount of exudates secreted by kidneys and glands, level of transpiration, structure in the pulmonary organ, amount of sleep, and calmness when facing dangers. As he notes, these differences point out that blacks are inferior to whites in terms of their bodies. In addition, Jefferson also asserts that the blacks’ reasoning and imagination are much inferior to the whites’ after he observes some of the art work and writings from the blacks. As a result, based on his observation, he draws a conclusion that whites are superior to blacks in terms of both body and mind. However, Jefferson’s use of hasty generalization, begging the question, and insulting language in his analysis is a huge flaw which ruins the credibility of his argument and offenses his readers.
There are times throughout the history of the United States when its citizens have felt the need to revolt against the government. Two such cases occurred during the time of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Henry David Thoreau. Both men courageously confronted the mighty us government; both spent time in jail as a result of their defiant actions; both men stood for a belief in a better future, and both presented their dreams through non-violent protest and civil disobedience. The similarities in their course of action are undeniable, but each man used different terms on which they based their arguments. Martin Luther King Junior's appeal through the human conscience, and Henry Thoreau's excellent use of patriotism, present similar issues in very dissimilar ways.
Thoreau 's defiant tone is evident when he bluntly claims, "It does not keep the country free. It does not settle the west. It does not educate." This defiant tone builds the readers anger toward a useless government, that as Thoreau says, "is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it." Thoreau 's main purpose for writing Civil Disobedience is to promote resistance against the current government system, so it is local that a government that does not help the people, should not have control over the people. Similarly, Malcolm X presents a resistant and mocking attitude by acknowledging, "The white man is too intelligent to let someone else come and gain control of the economy of his community. But you will let anyone come in and take control of the economy of your community, control the housing, control the education, control the jobs, control the busines-ses... No, you outta your mind." Malcolm X presents his listener with the image of a community foolish enough to be easily controlled by someone who did not have their best interest at heart. It is a proven fact that when someone is called stupid, their is anger and resentment however Malcolm 's listeners are not angry at him because he already seen
Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, and James Madison were all members of the Democratic- Republican Party. The Democratic- Republican Party had many standards for which it was built upon. These standards included the opposition of the National Bank, tariffs, Great Britain, and the Jay Treaty. They stood for a strict constitution, states rights, and they saw the importance in the yeoman farmers. All of these things went completely against everything that their opposing Federalist party stood for. However, even though their beliefs strongly differed those of the Federalists it didn’t stop Jefferson, Monroe, or Madison from adopting Federalist ideas. These ideas included: Jefferson straying from the Democratic-Republican Party’s idea of strict constitution
“On 21 February 1965, just a few weeks after his visit to Selma, Malcolm X was assassinated. King called his murder a “great tragedy” and expressed his regret that it “occurred at a time when Malcolm X was…moving toward a greater understanding of the nonviolent movement” (King, 24 February 1965). He asserted that Malcolm’s murder deprived “the world of a potentially great leader” (King, “The Nightmare of Violence”). Malcolm’s death signaled the beginning of bitter battles involving proponents of the ideological alternatives the two men
The Negro revolution is a stagnant fight; the black revolution is a fight with one decisive winner. In this talk of revolution he also pointed out the hypocrisy of the American people on the subject of violence. How many black people will to go war for a country that hates them and do not even want them in the country, but when a white man strikes them they turned a blind eye because “peace” is the answer. “If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad”(MalcomX, Message to the Grassroots), many people would agree with this sentiment. Why condemn those who want to fight for something they believe in using violence when we as a country are doing the same thing overseas. Later in the speech, Malcolm X calls out the modern house Negros we have today in the United States. A house Negro was the slaves who stayed in the living quarter with their master and were maids and butlers and tended to the children. The latter are the filed Negros who worked in the fields and stayed in
One hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation was written, African Americans were still fighting for equal rights in every day life. The first real success of this movement did not come until the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954 which was followed by many boycotts and protests. The largest of these protests, the March on Washington, was held on August 28, 1963 “for jobs and freedom” (March on Washington 11). An incredible amount of preparation went into the event to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of people attending from around the nation and to deal with any potential incidents.
Humans have established their own rights in society for many, many years now. However, because some humans differ from the norms that are built in society, they are shunned and denied their rights until they conform to society’s norms. There have been numerous groups of people who have been denied their rights in America. African Americans, immigrants, Native Americans, and gays have been isolated simply because that is the way they were born into this world and others do not find them “normal”. There is another group that has also been mistreated though: people who identify themselves as transgender.
On November 10th, 1963 Malcolm x released a speech called “Message to the Grassroots”. He had opened up the minds of all Africans and other nationalities. During this speech he gave everyone around him the ugly truth about America. In message to the grassroots speech Malcolm states “You are ex-slaves. You didn’t come here on the “Mayflower.” You came here on a slave ship — in chains, like a horse, or a cow, or a chicken”.The purpose to saying this was to show that the white man had brought us to america by force and not by choice. Malcolm Believed that the only way to end inequality was to start a revolution.
As Cohen indicated within his Arguments Against Civil Disobedience, “lawful channels may exist on paper but not in fact”, a concept which embodies society’s necessity for protest (Cohen 163). Indeed, the idea that people oftentimes have no other route than boycotts and strikes is evident throughout history. Martin Luther King, Jr., who wrote “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” after being arrested for peacefully protesting segregation in Alabama in 1963, discussed how he and his fellow resistors were left with no other choice than to rebel against the current social systems of the United States. In order to force their oppressors to gain perspective on civil rights, King and his comrades were driven to protest against “the city’s white power structure [which] left the Negro community with no alternative” (King par. 5.
9). When using the definition of hate speech provided in the previous paragraph it may be construed that a standard by which it is determined would also apply to various representatives of the civil rights movement as well. In his 1964 speech titled “The Ballot or the Bullet,” Malcom X challenged leaders of the movement to develop a new strategy to effect change in the country and if not two choices were left to African Americans: change the political system through the vote, or to change prevailing social conditions through revolution, “It’ll be Molotov cocktails this month, hand grenades next month, and something else next month. It’ll be ballots or it’ll be bullets. It’ll be liberty, or it will be death” (Malcom X para. 25). Many White Americans during this period might take the argument as a threat because they may have perceived such views were those of his religious beliefs and in accordance with the Nation Islam, an organization that favored African American succession and demonization of White people. However, the Supreme Court would not have viewed his speech as
All of the values that we have as Americans have stemmed from the founding of our country and have evolved with the growth and expansion of our nation. In the election of 1800 Thomas Jefferson was elected, which started a period that was known as Jeffersonian Democracy. This was the term used to express the influence of Jefferson on American politicians; however it also outlines the political culture from 1800 to the late 1820’s. In the same sense Jacksonian Democracy does the same. Andrew Jackson was elected in 1828 and his influence lasted into the Mexican War through President Polk. During these early periods the United States developed and grew into what we understand it as today. American values expanded with the country and the shift from Jeffersonian to Jacksonian Democracy produced new values.