Civil Disobedience: An Integral Part of American History

Many see laws as guiding tenets which must be adhered to in order to preserve society. However, laws are created by people, engendering a sense of uncertainty into every drafted, proposed, and ratified regulation. Although the vast majority of laws serve the good purpose of protecting the people, there are a few which warrant peaceful civil disobedience in order to convey the public’s sentiment to the legislative bodies. Indeed, America’s history has been defined by successful civil disobedience, from the Boston Tea Party to the Civil Rights Movement, and from the Vietnam War protests to today’s LGBTQ and Feminist movements. Civil disobedience takes its place alongside America’s core values of freedom, equality, and sovereignty. Additionally,

When people feel dissatisfied with their government or the law, they seek to take action to express their concerns. There are many ways to do this, and unfortunately many of the “effective” and immediate methods involve violence. Rioting, intimidation, and even assassination are employed, and are extremely high-profile, but can be extremely dangerous to society and degrade the movement or message behind the action. The Black Panther Party originally sought to challenge police brutality and other forms of official and unofficial oppression by “white America” through forming its own armed citizen militia, clashing with authorities on numerous occasions and causing unrest and violence. Although these actions captured the attention of the American public and media, these drastic measures painted African American organizations in a negative light and harmed many people in the process. On the other hand, peaceful civil disobedience gets the message across without causing harm to any person or property; an optimal solution. The majority of the organizations and actions within the Civil Rights Movement followed this philosophy and succeeded. Another famous case is the Indian independence movement led by Gandhi, where peaceful violations of British laws like the Salt March eventually resulted in a favorable outcome. Peaceful civil

True civil disobedience shows respect for the law and accepts the consequences, but unfortunately there are many who hijack a justified movement and use it to satisfy their own selfish motives. In large crowd actions, like blockading roads and airports, or occupying reserved spaces, anarchists take the opportunity to fight law enforcement, vandalize property, and injure others, tarnishing the concept of civil disobedience. Rioters at the demonstrations at the University of Washington, Seattle-Tacoma Airport, and the University of California, Berkeley acted dangerously and gave the opponents of the original movements fuel in their arguments to condemn the movements. Civil disobedience seeks to bring together people for a common good, but can also cause social strife and division when criminal elements and other rioters conceal their behavior within the overall social movement and anonymity of crowds and engage in malicious