Would the Civil Rights Act of 1964 been abolished without the use of non-violent civil disobedience? The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the year all state and local laws requiring segregation ended. Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. While some people believe the use of violent disobedience to help promote their cause is more effective than using a non-violent approach, it may ultimately hurt the progress by diverting the message. Although some protestors would prefer violent disobedience to raise awareness, non-violent disobedience is the best option because it keeps the message focused without the use of violence. The next …show more content…
Mohandas Gandhi is an Indian lawyer and a spiritual leader that led a successful nonviolent resistance movement against the British colonial power. “The tactic of nonviolence civil disobedience in the Civil Rights Movement was deeply influenced by the model of Mohandas Gandhi, (...) Gandhi 's approach of non-violent civil disobedience involved provoking authorities by breaking the law peacefully, to force those in power to acknowledge existing injustice and bring it to an end”. (1) “Provoking authorities by breaking the law peacefully” this is an example of how nonviolent disobedience allows the message to stay focused and reach the point where people in power cannot ignore. Violent actions draw the media away from the message and fuels the rich and powerful; those who hide behind barriers in order to mute the underprivileged. An example of underprivileged people is African American’s during the 1950s who were treated like second class citizens. “Laws separated people of color from whites in schools, housing, jobs, and public gathering places”. (3) The types of methods used to fight against segregation are, “One of the ways African American communities fought legal segregation was through direct action protests, such as boycotts, sit-ins, and mass civil disobedience”. (1) This is how nonviolent disobedience is fought …show more content…
(...) Malcolm X exhorted blacks to cast off the shackles of racism "by any means necessary," including violence”. (4) Malcolm X was also associated to the Black Panther Party. The Black Panther Party (BPP) was a revolutionary black nationalist and socialist organization active in the United States. The BPP is accountable for numerous accounts of successful violent disobedience in effort towards the black community. An example of how violent the BPP was, “FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover called the BPP the greatest threat to the internal security of the country". (5) There are scenarios that prove violence is needed to produce awareness and media 's attention in order to get a response from the people in power. Nothing sounds more convincing than a violent protest destroying your business. Dropping revenue from local businesses creates pressure; pressure that is aimed toward the city mayor. Together united the underprivileged people now have leverage over the mayor. The mayor’s best interest would be to support their demands to regain control over the city. An example would be from a movie “Battle in Seattle” activists arrive in Seattle, Washington to protest a meeting of the World Trade Organization. Riots and chaos ensue as demonstrators successfully stop the WTO meetings. Mayor Jim Tobin eventually ends up
Oscar Wilde, an Irish author, once suggested that if one were to ever look at the discourse of history, they would find that disobedience is man’s original virtue, and through disobedience social progress is made. The study of history is the study of social progress. Social progressions are the changes that occur in society that progress or improve social, political, and economic structures. Social progress can be achieved in several ways, but just like Oscar Wilde, I believe that disobedience is a valuable human trait that just so happens to be a huge part in the progression our society has made and continues to make.
In 1962, after a trip to India he gained a deeper understanding of what he could achieve by using the nonviolence approach. Upon his return to the United States of America, he focused his attention to Birmingham, Alabama the most segregated city in America, there he achieved two things, one was to demonstrate nonviolent marches, and protests can work to and also by using children, he could teach them that the nonviolent was the way forward. The protest in Birmingham, Alabama shock...
As Dr. King stated in Letter from A Birmingham Jail, “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. I must confess that I am not afraid of the word, tension. I have earnestly worked and preached against violent tension, but there is a type of constructive tension that is necessary for growth. The purpose of direct action is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.” Such as in the case of the 1969 student site-in against the Vietnam W...
In Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience," he uses a hyperbole to support his belief that "one person can make a change," an idea still relevant today. Thoreau uses many forms of literary techniques such as multiple hyperbole, emotional appeals, and paradoxes. Thoreau uses these to sustain his ideas on civil disobedience. He believes if you believe in something, and support something you should do whatever it takes to help the cause. Many people in today's society believe to just go with the flow, rather than living like Thoreau has, and supporting his own beliefs no matter what the consequence. Henry David Thoreau had a lot of personal authority, he was all about his own independence. Many different people believed in being a non-conformist, and Thoreau was one of them, and he very well showed how much he supported it. Thoreau was not the only nonconformist, they're many people who followed his beliefs and they refused to be bound by anybody, or anything they did not support. Other non-conformists were Gandhi, Galileo, Malcom X and many more.
Civil disobedience has been around for a long time. In Bible times Christians would disobey laws that would go against their beliefs, such as the law that they couldn’t preach. (Acts 4) Christians still disobey laws in many countries that do not let them practice their faith, some end up in jail or killed.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. received a Nobel Prize and was honored by the President of the United States for his contributions to society. On the other hand, he was prosecuted, convicted, incarcerated, and had his sentence reaffirmed by the Supreme Court. These explanations seem rather contradictory. If what he did was noble, why was he jailed for his actions? When we take into account these manifestations of the government's attitude towards Martin Luther King, we can safely make the assumption that the government is not always justified in the laws that it creates. Our government's original purpose was to keep order and ensure freedom to its people. As history has shown us, as in the case of African Americans, the government will expand its role and take away liberties of the few. The individual is justified in acting out in civil disobedience when the government restricts the liberties of the individual.
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.
During the period of 20 years between 1950 and 1970, black Americans were able to improve their level of civil rights. Therefore, it is logical to say that they were at least partly successful in achieving their civil rights. This was accomplished through a variety of ways, two commonly used techniques being legal strategies and non-violent direct action. However, because they were unable to attain complete equality, there must have been factors that worked against the civil rights movement. One of these factors was the use of violence as a means of protest.
By definition, civil disobedience means to actively refuse to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government or of an occupying power without resorting to physical violence (Wikipedia 2007). Many of the influential people in history have felt passionately about what they believe. These passions caused them to rebel against a government or authority. Many times they felt so strongly about what they believed and how they were being treated was wrong they became disobedient. They would take physical and verbal abuse for being disobedient but would never retaliate. They believed in what they thought was wrong and tried to change the way they were governed. Albert Einstein once said 'never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.' Albert Einstein's views seem to be reasonable. The claim by Albert Einstein is accurate because people should stand up for what they believe, they should know when they are right and their government is wrong, and they should trust in themselves and their own beliefs.
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 ...
After spending a night in jail for his tax evasion, he became inspired to write “Civil Disobedience.” In this essay, he discusses the importance of detaching one’s self from the State and the power it holds over its people, by refraining from paying taxes and putting money into the government. The idea of allowing one’s self to be arrested in order to withhold one’s own values, rather than blindly following the mandates of the government, has inspired other civil rights activists throughout history, such as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King , Jr. Both these men fought against unjust laws, using non-violent, yet effective, methods of protest.
Throughout his education, Martin Luther King Jr. tried to find a way to demonstrate his belief of racial equality with the most effective means possible. He quickly realized that the best strategy to end segregation was to use nonviolent forms of protest. At Crozer, Morehouse and Boston University, he studied the teaching of Mohandas Gandhi, who used nonviolent methods to help India claim its independence from Britain. King read several books on the ideas of Gandhi, and eventually became convinced that his methods could be employed by African Americans to obtain equality in America. King knew that any violence on the part of African Americans would lead to violent responses from segregationists, which would lead to injury or maybe even death for his followers. He had to teach his followers not to respond violently to cruel attacks from segregationists. King decided to sponsor workshops to train African Americans in nonviolent beh...
The Indian pacifist Gandhi once said “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind,”(Gandhi). Mohandas Karamchand “Mahatma” Gandhi believed fighting only makes a situation worse and abhorred committing violence in almost all forms. As a young man of privilege, Gandhi was given an excellent education, studying Indian law at the University College London and put this education to effective use back home. In protests against the tyrannical British-rule in India, the combinations of varying people and religions were instrumental, all the while garnering significant international support for the cause. Mahatma Gandhi’s policy of nonviolent, civil disobedience was highly influenced by a variety of religions and individuals and the Indian leader was able to put the various ideas gathered to effective use.
In society there are theoretical paths that exist based on time and place. These societal paths may have the same appearance and may even cross each other, but each path has its own road that it takes people on. Civil Disobedience is portrayed in time by two immensely influential emancipators: Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. The belief of civil disobedience is that in order to diminish an unruly leadership one must bring an end to legally executed injustice, through being peaceful and intransigent. Many credible scholars have noted the similarities between the civil right movements of Martin Luther King Jr. and the philosophies of Mahatma Gandhi. Evidently, these two men both have common themes. King and Gandhi both concur in their
Gandhi was known first for his nonviolence behavior and would condemn his own party opposing violence. Gandhi made use of nonviolent and passive resistance through non-cooperation as his weapon of choice in the conflict against the British. The butchery of civilians by British military personnel resulted in increased public anger and acts of violence. Mahatma Gandhi criticized both the activities of British Government and the revenge of the butchery from the Indians. He extended consolation to the British victims and denounced the riots. Initially his party was opposed to his declaration. Later, however, they accepted Gandhi’s principal stating that any retaliation or violence was hurtful and could not be justified. Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi success with nonviolent activism, Martin Luther King Jr. pushed forward his Civil Rights Movement with nonviolent activism as well. Although the two have personally never had contact, Dr. King learned of Gandhi 's discipline while in the seminary. His first application of the nonviolent campaign came in 1955 during the Montgomery bus boycott. Here, he had a witnessed firsthand the power of a peaceful