John Wilkes Booth, the infamous assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, was noted for quoting the Latin phrase, “Sic semper tyrannis.” In this clear display of disobedience by violence, Mr. Booth clearly violated all codes of civil conduct in his attempt to serve justice as he believed was, “Ever thus to tyrants!” As time progressed, it is fortunate that society realized violence for what it truly is: an obstacle to social change. While it is necessary to acknowledge that violent disobedience is still used too often within this modern age, it is also refreshing to consider that humanity has elected civil disobedience as a dominant force of change for issues that exist today. Seeing that this is the case, it is necessary to acknowledge that …show more content…
Coined by abolitionist Mr. Henry David Thoreau when he wrote about refusing to pay his poll tax, it is interesting to see how civil disobedience has come a long way since. The benefits of this phenomena can first be seen when analyzing the classic example of Mrs. Rosa Parks. While most people know her story in the context of the Civil Rights Movement, historians consider this example as one of the first turning points within this era due to her conscious violation of preexisting statutes. The same can be said when analyzing how Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did the same thing by getting arrested nearly 30 times throughout the entirety of the Civil Rights Movement for similar actions. In hindsight, all these actions of peaceful resistance had the single most positive effect in American history by ushering in an age of true equality. Through these small actions that seemed insignificant at the time, history created a blueprint for the resulting desegregation and universal rights that followed. This is probably one of the most important examples of civil disobedience in recent history and shows us that the overarching positive impact this had on free society made those arrests worth it the