Nonviolent Resistance- the Answer to Oppression

357 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Dealing with forms of oppression

There are many different ways human beings deal with oppression. In his book, Stride Toward Freedom, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. expresses how people handle oppression in three characteristic ways. Acquiescence, violence, or nonviolent resistance are ways the oppressed deal with their oppressors. In King's excerpt, he expresses that nonviolent resistance is the morally and correct way of dealing with oppression. King believed it was only through nonviolent resistance that things would begin to change for the oppressed.

Acquiescence, passive assent or agreement without protest, makes an individual accept his situation and thereby adjusts his lifestyle to accommodate for it. The individual has given up hope for change and has accepted his fate in the world he is living in. In many cases, the individual would rather accept this unjust lifestyle than fight for change. King imparts that this is not the way to handle oppression and is even a way of condoning the unjust behavior. King states, "To accept passively an unjust system is to cooperate with that system, thereby the oppressed become as evil as the oppressors," (281). King discloses that the Negro cannot win the respect of his oppressors with this mindset. The oppressor is given complete power over the oppressed who's spirit is crushed.

Zierman 2

King also states that violence is not the answer either in that it brings only momentary results and never achieves permanent peace. "It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers," (282). King is a firm believer in the saying, "an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind." King affirms that if the oppressed succumb to the temptations of violence, it is the future generations that will bear the endless reign of meaningless chaos. Here, nothing is accomplished and only instills more hatred in both parties.

King's resolution to fighting oppression is nonviolent resistance. It "seeks to reconcile the truths of the two opposites- acquiescence and violence- while avoiding the extremes and immoralities of both," (282). He communicates that nonviolent resistance agrees with the acquiesces who believe one should not resort to violence while also confirming with the violent individual that believes evil cannot be condoned or ignored.

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Civil Disobedience In Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

    1062 Words  | 3 Pages

    It seeks to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored” (d fjdsafkdsjfklsjf). In this quote King is explaining the idea of direct action and how that when one attempts to negotiate and others do not listen, direct action and civil disobedience is necessary. King describes direct action as a way to bring the issues to the forefront in a manner that the other party must stop and ponder the ideas you are conveying and consider them. King says that direct action causes the issues to no longer be ignored, due to how important they are through the direct action. In this quote you can see that King is very much for the idea of negotiating but realizes that if negotiations are not being heard, direct action and civil disobedience is necessary. King also states “My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent-resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for

    Read More

  • Letter From Birmingham Jail By Martin Luther King

    919 Words  | 2 Pages

    The forceful subjugation of a people has been a common stain in history; Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail was written during the cusp of the civil rights movement in the US on finding a good life above oppressive racism. Birmingham “is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known,” and King’s overall goal is to find equality for all people under this brutality (King). King states “I cannot sit idly. and not be concerned about what happens,” when people object to his means to garner attention and focus on his cause; justifying his search for the good life with “a law that is just on its face and unjust in its application,” (King).

    Read More

  • Chris Mccandless Philosophy

    799 Words  | 2 Pages

    He effectively argues this through a strong biblical allusion, saying, “… just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid”. By alluding the Bible King provokes pathos in his audience, who responded strongly to religion. Next, he uses a simile to compare “a boil that can never be cured [until exposed]” to “injustice [that] must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates”. His comparison justifies the fact that injustice must be exposed to “the air of national opinion before it can be cured”. People must call attention to their disgruntlement, otherwise the issues will never be resolved. King identifies this fact through the use of inverted sentence saying, “there can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs [the] community”. The inability to deny that racial injustice has taken over strengthens the idea that the individual has not only a birthright but also a responsibility to challenge unjust laws. King argues this through a parallel structure when saying, “...[I] can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme

    Read More

  • Examples Of Injustice In Letter From Birmingham Jail

    758 Words  | 2 Pages

    talks about how African Americans in the South were being arrested and publicly chastened by the police force for their nonviolent protests. But, he extols these protests because of what they stand for. He says they “…preserve the evil system of segregation…I wish you had commended the Negro demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer, and their amazing discipline in the midst of the most inhuman provocation” (94). Because these people were aiming to end the discrimination they were facing, and did this in a peaceful manner that respected their Judeo-Christian values that all men are created equal, King saw it as exactly what this oppressed group needed. They needed a push of confidence to know that they were being treated unjustly, and that they did have the power to stand up to

    Read More

  • Civil Disobedience In Antigone By Martin Luther King

    1278 Words  | 3 Pages

    Non-violent direct action and respectful disagreement are a form of civil disobedience. Martin Luther King, Jr. defines “civil disobedience” as a way to show others what to do when a law is unjust and unreasonable. King is most famous for his role in leading the African American Civil Rights Movement and using non-violent civil disobedience to promote his beliefs. King also firmly believed that civil disobedience was the way to defeat racial segregation against African Americans. While leading a protest march on the streets, King was arrested and sent to jail. In response to his imprisonment and an article he read while there, King wrote Letter from Birmingham Jail, explaining that an injustice affects everyone and listed his own criteria for

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Dr Martin Luther King Love Law And Civil Disobedience

    1475 Words  | 3 Pages

    Doctor Martin Luther King Jr.’s essay “Love, Law, and Civil Disobedience” has two main features. The first feature of King’s essay is a call for action; action to bring about change. The second feature, the more easily viewed feature of this essay is a call for a specific type of action to bring about a specific type of change. The change King wishes to bring about is a peace and equality brought about through non-violent actions.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Dr. Martin Luther Kings Letter From The Birmingham City Jail

    939 Words  | 2 Pages

    With this ideal in mind, he brings up the notion that with unjust laws, they are meant to be broken if the person breaking them has accepted the consequences or if breaking the law is for the bettering of society. King believed that if you break a law that your conscience deemed unjust and accept the punishment in order to make people think about the injustice that the law set in place, you have the highest respect for the law. As stated in the prior paragraph, King refers to the voting system in the state of Alabama and how it is corrupt. The way laws go about being voted upon, make them unjust, and therefore set a baseline for them to be broken. Towards the end of the passage, King brings to light how the police officers were commended for their actions of keeping the protesters in order and preventing violence. The white community believed that all laws were just, because they did not negatively affect their lives, so the black community speaking out and protesting against them were seen as obscene. This point of view demonstrates Kings beliefs that unjust laws are breakable, because while the white community in Alabama saw their protests as obscene and unneeded, the rest of the country tuned in to watch everything unfold. Those who were on the outside looking in felt sympathy for the black community, and agreed that change was needed in the South. Further in the letter, King uses a variation of “the ends justify the means” when he states that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends, and that it is wrong to use moral means to attain immoral ends. These statements show that King realizes how the system is working against him and his fellow black Americans. By police officers treating black protestors violently, they are using what the white community has

    Read More

  • Nonviolent Resistance In Martin Luther King

    1564 Words  | 4 Pages

    Times were looking up for African Americans, their new freedom gave them the option to go down a road of either criminal actions or to make something out of themselves. But the presence of racism and hatred was still very much so alive, Klu Klux Klan, although not as strong as they were after the Civil War was still present. Laws like Jim Crow laws and “separate but equal” came into play and continued to show how racism was alive. Besides these actors of racism, blacks still started gaining a major roll in American society.

    Read More

  • The Power of Nonviolent Resistance (NVR)

    1378 Words  | 3 Pages

    When contrasting violent and non-violent forms of civil disobedience, one can look at the contrasting doctrines of civil rights activists Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Martin Luther King’s tactics of protest involved non-violent passive resistance to racial injustice. He once said, “unearned suffering is redemptive. Suffering,...

    Read More

  • Martin Luther King Jr.

    578 Words  | 2 Pages

    the segregationists, resulting in the injury and deaths of many of King’s followers. With these points in mind, King came to the conclusion that the best strategy in gaining the rights of African American was the use of non-violent protest. He believed that violence only “intensifies evil,';

    Read More

  • The Ways of Meeting Oppression

    1993 Words  | 4 Pages

    Martin Luther King Jr. expresses to the black race that one way people deal with their oppression is by acquiescence. This term means to accept passively. He is telling his audience, in this case, the African Americans, that they give in and just follow the orders that are told. Instead of somehow standing up for themselves they prefer to be oppressed. This shows that they are used to the task of being a slave and choose to keep it that way instead of standing up for their rights. He wants to give the idea to the black pop...

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Gandhi And Martin Luther King

    844 Words  | 2 Pages

    Gandhi and King both agreed that nonviolence is accomplished by revolutionizing the relationship between adversaries, and that its strength lies in their commitment to justice. However, Gandhi puts emphasis on a need for personal suffering in the practice of nonviolence, a stance that is somewhat less aggressive than

    Read More

  • Discrimination In Dr. King's Letter From Birmingham Jail

    512 Words  | 2 Pages

    King states, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” For example, a black man was shot and killed by a police officers while reaching for his wallet after being pulled over. When the news publicized this it made the black community fear police officers across the nation. Proving that one act of injustice anywhere could threaten justice everywhere else.

    Read More

  • Marijuana Should be Legalized

    1600 Words  | 4 Pages

    According to Martin Luther King Jr., “There are two types of laws: there are just and there are unjust laws” (King 293). During his time as civil rights leader, he advocated civil disobedience to fight the unjust laws against African-Americans in America. For instance, there was no punishment for the beatings imposed upon African-Americans or for the burning of their houses despite their blatant violent, criminal, and immoral demeanor. Yet, an African-American could be sentenced to jail for a passive disagreement with a white person such as not wanting to give up their seat to a white passenger on a public bus. Although these unjust laws have been righted, Americans still face other unjust laws in the twenty-first century.

    Read More

  • Martin Luther King's Successful Philosophy

    1005 Words  | 3 Pages

    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...

    Read More

More about Nonviolent Resistance- the Answer to Oppression

Open Document