...One of the many ways that we have freedom now is because of Martin Luther King Jr. African American. One of the ways african americans communities fought legal segregation was through direct action protest, such as boycotts sitting, and mass civil disobedience. The tactic of nonviolence civil disobedience in the civil right movement was deeply influenced by the model of Mohandas Gandhi, an indian lawyer who became a spiritual leader and lead a successful nonviolent resistance movement against the british colonial power in India. Gandha approached of nonviolent civil disobedience involved provoking authorities by bring it to an end. For its followers, this strategy involves a willingness to suffer and sacrifice oneself. In 1960, black college...
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...Civil disobedience has been used throughout history, sometimes with the outcome of desired change, and others with no outcome. This protest makes an impact. It makes people think about why, and causes them to understand magnitude of ones peaceful actions. This form of protest is positive for our society. It is not harming anyone physically, and shows that people want change. Civil Disobedience directly aligns with freedom of speech and our American freedoms to have unique thoughts and opinions. In the constitution it is stated that Americans have the right to protest something that goes against their personal values, or they feel goes against the constitution. In addition, it is a major enlightenment ideal. During the formation of our country, and our Constitution, there was a time of enlightenment. France and Haiti were also going through revolutions. Many thinkers such as Adam Smith, John Locke, and even Thomas Jefferson were encouraging revolution, and governments for the people. All were backed by the ideals of protest when necessary....
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...context to shroud their rational judgement on certain policies. True change occurs when citizens organize initiative to reach a desired outcome that ultimately benefits society. The omnipresent notion of civil disobedience has historically been a detrimental pillar of multitudinous social and political revolutions. Civil disobedience serves a healthy factor of democracy because it creates a vocal platform for unaddressed deficiencies of society, it is an effective approach to promoting change peacefully, and it unifies support for greater reform. One of the most influential ways to communicate the ills of a society is to highlight controversy and shift in human attitudes. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, nonviolent disobedience “seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored” (King Jr.). In fact, one of the most significant elements of the American Civil Rights movement was this doctrine of disobedience. During this time...
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...There are many reasons why peaceful resistance positively impacts a free society.Although many view that opposing civil disobedience is absolutely disastrous, many incidents have led to more preferable conditions in our society such as the Rosa Parks bus boycott incident, women’s suffrage movement, and Gandhi’s opposition to the British rule. One of the most memorable acts regarding civil disobedience is the Rosa Parks bus boycott incident. What happened on December 1st, 1955 was a historical moment that screamed equality for all. One afternoon in Montgomery, Alabama, a middle-aged African American woman named Rosa Parks had wanted to return home from work, so she rode a bus for transportation. Seeing a full bus, a white passenger walked...
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...Civil Disobedience: A Tool for the People History is filled with examples of the ways the people sought political change including rebellion, assassination, and war. One more peaceful, relatively new idea on protesting the government is civil disobedience. Theologian Henry David Thoreau created the term “Civil Disobedience” in his 1849 essay. One partakes in civil disobedience when one defines opposition to laws on a moral basis and accepts the consequences in order to call attention to, or bring about change (Brownlee). It has been implemented several times over the course of almost one-hundred and seventy years, and today it still is used to great effect. Despite many calling civil disobedience an excuse for anarchy and labeling it superfluous...
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...figures. He led many protests that revolutionized the idea of civil disobedience, or non-violent protest. Gandhi rallied thousands to disobey the oppressive and racist British government as an Indian nationalist movement to free India. Under his leadership, the Indian Congress launched a series of mass movements: the Civil Disobedience Movement and the Non Cooperation Movement in 1920s and 1930s. The former was triggered by the historic Salt March, when Gandhi led a group of followers from his ashram on a 200 mile march to Dandi on the west coast in order to prepare salt in a violation of British law. Gandhi soon earned the title “Mahatma,” or Great Soul. In August 1942, the Quit India movement was launched. The British resorted to brutal repression against non-violent protesters. It was evident that the British could only maintain the empire at enormous cost to themselves. At the end of World War II, the British began to transfer power to the now sovereign State of India. Throughout the major events of his life, the concept of Satyagraha, or non-violent, peaceful resistance remained a foundational basis for all of his major movements. Gandhi’s philosophy of Satyagraha encompassed his most central core value and belief of the truthful pursuit of non-violence. This idea is displayed through the formation of his ideas on civil disobedience, his implementation of the historic Salt March, and his reaction to the Quit India movement. Satyagraha provides a structural foundation for Gandhi’s...
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...years ago, the events of what became known as “Bloody Sunday” unfolded. “Bloody Sunday” was one of the hundreds of marches that occurred during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s. This movement was also characterized by other acts of nonviolent civil disobedience, such as sit-ins, boycotts, and rallies. The civil rights movement was a human rights movement established in the hopes of ending legalized racial segregation and discrimination laws in the United States. One objective of this movement was to push for legislation to enforce the fifteenth amendment. The fifteenth amendment states that no one could be denied the right to vote because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. However, this amendment was...
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...- 2 – The LD File Civil Disobedience Index Topic Overview 3-7 Definitions 8-10 Affirmative Cases 11-19 Negative Cases 20-25 Affirmative Extensions 26-34 Civil disobedience worked to free India. 26 Civil disobedience overthrew the communists in Poland. 26 The tradition of civil disobedience in America goes all the way back to the founders. 26 Civil disobedience can serve to prevent situations from escalating into violence. 27 Civil Disobedience has been used to promote peace. 27 Civil disobedience was used to promote racial equality. 27 Civil disobedience is used to try to prevent the destruction of the environment. 27 Civil disobedience is effective at changing the law. 28 Legal channels can take too long. 28 Consent to obey just laws does not imply consent to obey unjust ones. 28 Distinguishing between just and unjust laws to disobey can be universalized. 28 Civil disobedience can be stabilizing to a community by spreading a shared sense of justice. 29 Sometimes it is only the unjustified response to civil disobedience that has harmful consequence. 29 Civil disobedience is traditionally non-violent. 29 Civil disobedience is a form of exercising free speech- which is essential in a democracy. 30 Civil disobedience has been used to fight slave laws 30 Civil disobedience played a role in ending the Vietnam war. 30 Civil disobedience shouldn’t be punished-...
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...Civil disobedience is the idea that people should respectfully and peacefully resist laws they find immoral. The idea Began in The Mexican American War when the abolitionist Henry David Thoreau refused to pay taxes. He thought that the war would help expand slavery as most of the land won in the war would become slave states. Many would use This idea throughout U.S. history. Civil disobedience has been a positive way to impact a free society. One example of this was the walk out movement in East Los Angeles. The movement began when Mexican American students left Homeroom before roll call. As school funding was determined by attendance rate. The students did this because the school board would not hear their demands. After a week of protests...
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...“It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.” -Aristotle. Being a good citizen means following laws set in place despite whether or not they are ethically correct to oneself. However, being a good person is disobeying unethical laws because they know that it's not the appropriate way to go about certain issues. Civil disobedience is one of the best ways to show your disagreement in a democratic government. Movements such as the Civil Rights Movement or the Flowers v. Guns have shown that if enough people support a cause then there will be change. Some could say current movements aren't as effective but Rome wasn't built in a day. Many of the past movements took years to accomplish the goals of the people. All...
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...Civil disobedience is an active refusal to obey certain laws, commands, and demands of a government in a nonviolent way, in hopes to influence the government to change the rules and regulations they had put in place for a single group of people. Henry David Thoreau wrote a book titled "Civil Disobedience"; he wrote this book to protest slavery in the United States and the Mexican-American War. (Why Did Thoreau) He rebelled by not paying taxes because when he paid taxes the funds were going to both events he did not support at all. He stayed true to his morals so much so he was even put in jail for a night. The acts of Thoreau showed the Americans that if nobody spoke up, they could be stuck in the same unjust that they were used to living...
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...representation. Peaceful resistance has often been the source of social and political change and has historically represented people who feel that their voice is not being heard. Therefore, civil disobedience positively impacts a free society because...
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...cause, and strikes are healthy to a society because they give a way for the citizens to voice their opinions to make sure their society is truly free. One of the best examples of peaceful disobedience is in the civil rights movements with Martin Luther King Jr. and his peaceful disobedience, another peaceful disobedience is with Rosa Parks in her fight for racial equality, and the marches and strikes from the Mexican American plantation workers. These examples had a positive impact on the society and helped make America as free as it is today, along with examples of peaceful protesting today for greater freedom. Martin Luther King Jr. is well known for his participation in the Civil Rights movement and has gone down in history as an example of how peaceful protesting can promote positive change. One of the ways that he did this was by writing letters from inside Birmingham jail. The letters that Martin...
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...Lloyd Wyse Melissa Hull EN 209-014 April 18, 2012 Critical Essay: Civil Disobedience Civil disobedience is the active refusal to comply with certain laws or demands of a government, such as paying fines or taxes. Although it is not necessarily on-violent, it has classically been attributed to nonviolent resistance. The etymological origin of the term is from Henry David Thoreau’s essay Resistance to Government, written in 1849, which was eventually renamed to Essay on Civil Disobedience. Since its republication in 1866, Thoreau’s essay has inspired many important activists over the course of history. Its messages have resonated within countless people unsatisfied or disgusted with the law of the land; one of the most prominent lessons it teaches is that an unjust government can only be corrected by the defiance of its people. As long as there is an imperfect government, there will be a need for civil disobedience. Citizens of nations from all over the globe still read and learn from Civil Disobedience because even in modern times a perfect government does not exist. In Civil Disobedience, Thoreau prompts the reader to take direct action against injustice. He argues that the government is a representative of corruption and injustice that, like a machine, fuels the enabling of its wrongdoings through enforcement of law. He states that an individual’s silent compliance with the law is essentially the same as cooperation with injustices that the lawmaker commits. In particular...
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...Gandhi, a world renowned political and spiritual leader. The symbol of free India. A great man who fought for the rights of his people through his words instead of his actions. Gandhi has a great start on what could be somewhat of a bible of life. He did this by describing in great detail what he should do to live in harmony. What made Gandhi's nonviolence movement work? There were three keys to success in leading to movement, civil disobedience, willingness to serve jail time and embracing the enemy. One key tactic that Gandhi used was disciplined civil disobedience. Gandhi started a campaign of Satyagraha “The salt march” in march 1930, to free India from british control (Doc A). Thousands of people followed Gandhi's lead. Civil disobedience...
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