Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., and Susan B. Anthony: all these people are known as heroes. They are also criminals, according to the laws of their time. All these brave men and women went to jail for their beliefs against the justice system, willingly accepting their punishments, and leading peaceful protests in the change of laws for which they were arrested. Their inspiration reached out to other causes as well, such as the anti-Vietnam war protests. They are all testaments to the power of civil disobedience, and the impact it continues to have on American society.
Martin Luther King Junior led a multitude of peaceful protests that shaped civil rights, the most successful of these being his bus boycott on behalf of Rosa Parks and segregation. Rosa Parks was an African American woman who refused to give up her bus seat to a white man, which was considered illegal in Montgomery. After Parks’ arrest MLKJ lead the bus boycott, which lasted 382 days. After the economic hit to
…show more content…
She helped to organize several marches and protests against the voting laws that disqualified women from voting. Anthony and many other women registered to vote when the movement was underway. Not expecting to be accepted, she planned to sue the state for not letting her vote, as women were still prohibited from doing so. However, her registration slipped through the cracks and was accepted, so she voted. She and fourteen other women were incarcerated under the accusations that they voted unlawfully and underwent rigorous trials while being held in prison. Her influence of voting protests inspired other suffragettes that eventually led to the final march on Woodrow Wilson, which resulted in the arrested protestors going on a hunger strike until he gave them their word to support the cause. In his second term, he kept his word and the 19th amendment was