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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: Participator In The Civil Rights Movement

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Among today’s society if a law is unjust then it is up to the citizens of that government to act. In some cases this has led to protestors or people to break laws. As bad as that may sound history has proven that through civil disobedience, ordinary people were able to stand up for what was just and change the very society they were living in. One of the biggest cases of civil disobedience were those who peacefully protested for civil rights in 1954. During this time racial segregation in the south was intense, resulting in the demoralization of the black race. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a main advocate and participator in the civil rights movement knew it was necessary to act through civil disobedience to fight the injustice that had flooded …show more content…

Dr. King and his supporters participated in non-violent direct action that included sit-ins, desegregations, and protest marches. Now although these protests revolved around being peaceful, someone always managed to get hurt and those people were usually the ones protesting. The African American protestors were the ones that got mauled by police dogs, hit with high pressure water cannons, and then thrown into jail. These were the harsh prices African Americans had to face, but they knew it had to happen. Through civil disobedience Dr. King and those who supported him changed the very society they were living in for the better. Mr. Snowden however has been on the run since 2013 from the very country he used to call home. Mr. Snowden knew the consequences he would face, but even at that he still payed the price. Snowden sacrificed his own right to live so that his fellow citizens were aware of what there government was doing. Although many people criticized him as being a traitor, many other people saw the good in his intentions. According to biography.com “…more than 100,000 people signed an online petition asking President Obama to pardon Snowden…”, but even at that, he would still be charged. Although Edward Snowden also paid a hefty price, his actions ended up leading to the investigations of the N.S.A.. Dr. King and Mr. Snowden went against their superiors through civil disobedience not only for them, but for the interest of the

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Civil disobedience is the act of disobeying governmental commands in a peaceful, non-violent, form of protest. Throughout history, peaceful protest have had a positive impact on free society. Peaceful protest have had the biggest impact during the Civil Rights Movement. During this time, many people have led non-violent protest for their rights, including well known African-American Activist, Martin Luther King Jr.. He was most famously known for his speech, I Have a Dream.

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For example, Edward Snowden exposed the National Security Agency for eavesdropping on Americans and people around the world, despite the possibility of being arrested and charged with heavy crimes. " So, what did the leaks tell us? First, they confirmed that the U.S. government, without obtaining any court warrants, routinely collects the phone logs of tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, of Americans, who have no links to terrorism whatsoever,"(Source 3). The question is who is truly at fault? The government for doing that or Snowden for ratting them out to the public about

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This is represented by Martin Luther King Jr better than no any other. In "A Letter from a Birmingham Jail", MLK reflects on his life so far as to defend it against people who condemn him for his actions. Martin deflects these criticisms by saying "an unjust law is no law at all." This fully characterizes MLK as a man who believes in laws, but doesn't believe in laws that intentionally target specific groups of people for no reason. So it becomes one's duty to protest against these laws in a productive and meaningful way culminating in civil disobedience.

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Martin Luther King Jr once stated, “One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” in his Letter from Birmingham Jail in 1963. He was invoking the principle of civil disobedience. He wasn't justifying breaking laws just because, but instead, meant that you break the law and accept your punishment, in hopes that people will come to see that the law is unethical. Civil disobedience plays an important role in how our society has been shaped up until this point.

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As Oscar Wilde said, “ It is through disobedience that progress has been made-- disobedience and rebellion.” Disobedience during the American Revolution was originally peaceful, but as grievances grew and British rule became harsher, Americans could no longer sit idly by. Radical disobedience to the law was necessary in order to promote change for American society. During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s, a drastic nonviolent movement was necessary to counteract the expectation of violence, reiterating to Americans that peaceful resistance to laws can positively affect a free society. The Civil Rights movement was split by two factions: one was a violent resistance named The Black Panthers and the other was a nonviolent protest led by Martin Luther King Jr.

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I don 't think of Edward Snowden as a hero or a traitor. I do think what he did was bad he informed the general public of what the federal government is doing and the people have the right to know. If my best friend 's girlfriend was cheating on him and I told him about it does that make me a traitor? that 's an over simplified comparison but the point is that we as people of the "free world" have the right to know. The federal government should not have the ability to monitor your activity without a warrant without a just cause.

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As Martin Luther King Jr. observes in his "Letters From a Birmingham Jail," it is a sad thing when people condemn the effects of civil disobedience without considering the conditions which festered and led to such a nonviolent protest. As Thoreau writes in his "Civil Disobedience," too much respect for the law can lead people to blindly to terrible things. Consider the Germans who, out of fear of the law, committed the atrocities of the Holocaust; or, the participants of the Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures, in which men were instructed to continuously 'shock' a hidden person, and which, goaded on by the authority figure, continued even until the subject of the punishment (in actuality an actor) 'died.' Those who choose to take action to take down laws that do not uphold the morals of the people as a whole work instead towards a society based on considered values that respect all of its

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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. got arrested and put in prison in 1963 because of protesting. While he was in jail he wrote a letter explaining the reason he organized nonviolent protest to support the civil rights of African Americans was to defend his right and ethical background. His letter was directed towards a letter that was wrote by eight white clergymen who criticized his actions. Dr. King protected the lawfulness of using protest and breaking the law for nonviolent protest towards segregation and racism. His organization tried to work with white American business owners but the outcome did not turn out great.

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One of the wise words said by Martin Luther King Jr., specifically in a letter while in Birmingham jail, is "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere". King was the leader of a civil obedience group and was therefore arrested for it due to it being a group that resisted laws, despite it being peacefully, to show the public and the government that a change was needed and succeeded in making that change to let the U.S. be what it is today. Thus, peaceful resistance to laws ultimately impact a free society positively so that a free society may remain or truly become free. Peacefully resisting laws help inform the government and/or citizens that something is not right. Rosa Parks is known for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man for the laws back then were white accommodating and she was

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He used civil disobedience when he expected for Britain to allow India’s independence but even though it did not happened he always remained using non-violence. On the other hand, Martin Luther King Jr was a Baptist minister and social activist who played a key role in the American civil rights movement from the mid-1950s. During this time King only goal was to raise the public consciousness of racism, he wanted to end racial discrimination and segregation in the United States. The only way to fight towards this injustice was using

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Snowden was committed to doing the right thing so he revealed the different spying operations that were going on within the N.S.A. He became a whistleblower who rescued American citizens from being monitored through illegal surveillance and was looked upon as a

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A few weeks later, these documents were released by The Guardian, and Edward Snowden was the reliable source. Now, people all over knew that the United States Government was spying on its own people through messages, internet searches, browser history, smart T.V’s and many many more. This case is ongoing, as he seeks asylum in other countries. This newfound information raises the question, is Mr. Snowden a traitor, or did he save us all by “blowing the whistle” to warn us about the unconstitutional collection of our private possessions protected by

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In the case of Edward Snowden and what he did is somewhat controversial. The controversy on this subject is that some think he should be punished for his actions and others think he should be free and have no charges. The people that think he shouldn’t be punished also think that the government is wrong for doing what it was doing. They also think he shouldn’t be punished for exposing something the government is doing that is against the law. Now if a person is in a government agency and is doing things to keep the mass majority safe will see him as a traitor and want him to be punished.

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He put his whole life and career at risk by being a whistleblower. He was able to divulge to the public the illegal activities of the NSA in the collection of many private information transmitted through the internet. His intention was to inform everyone about the violation of the NSA in the rights of every internet user for freedom. This so-called “internet- and telecommunications-liberty” was deprived when the US government launched the PRISM

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Edward Snowden put his own freedom at risk by revealing the misconduct of NSA and he made many important disclosures such as the NSA was seizing phone and text records of everyone in the US and was monitoring at least 122 world leaders.(Turley, 2014) Also, his documents showed evidence of million intercepted calls in foreign countries, including every call in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. ( Turley, 2014). He did a great public service and what he did was an act of moral courage. Some people argue that he broke rules and shamed the government.

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