Civil Disobedience: Thoreau And Martin Luther King Jr.

Civil disobedience is characterized by the refusal to conform to specific laws or refusal to pay expenses and fines as a way to protest but in a calm manner. These humble, nonviolent protests are examples of civil disobedience. The expectations of protesters as they demonstrate these rallies are to make a social, economic, or political change. Henry David Thoreau and Martin Luther King Jr. where both masters of peaceful protest that contend for the rights to disobey authority if there was unfair treatment. Henry Davis Thoreau was born in Concord on July 12th, 1817. He was a teacher and a writer who graduated from Harvard University. Thoreau wanted to change the mindset and customs of the people to put an end to the unfair treatment of them and their environment. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a minister, speaker, and author who lectured his rationality of peacefulness while heading the Civil Rights Movement. Sit-ins, boycotts, and marches are illustrations used to demonstrate this nonviolent protest. Thoreau describes the obligation and duty of the people to speak out and make moves against bias laws of the legislature. King discloses that the laws

Thoreau's "Resistance to Civil Government" was composed in the United States throughout the introspective philosophy time, around 1837 to the 1840's. His essay details the experience he had when he was imprisoned for one night because he refused to pay poll taxes in protest against what he regarded as proslavery agenda of the war against Mexico. King's “A Letter from Birmingham Jail" is composed in Birmingham, Alabama a hundred years after the fact of Thoreau in the middle of Civil Rights Era. King was captured and imprisoned for seven days for challenging the unjust treatment of blacks in Birmingham. Both essays have experiences that take place during a time when there was a large amount of concern about the wrongdoing of the