The Legal Rebellion: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The Legal Rebellion Breaking the law is a bad thing. Well, most of the time. Rebelling against authority has always been taught to be wrong, but in certain cases it can be a very good thing. If you look back in history, and even in situations today, the government isn’t always doing what’s right. The “law” in some instances has been completely immoral. The “law,” all over the world, has countlessly worked against its people. No system is perfect, but in the many occasions where the legal institutions are deplorable, nothing changed until people decided to stand out. In the mid 1900s Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lead one of the most well known displays of civil disobedience, the civil rights movement amongst African Americans. At the time

One of the things he taught was civil disobedience. Socrates fully understood that the government won’t always be fair or just, and that the people had a right to do something about it. “The only life worth living, is the upright life, or the life committed to the search for truth.” (“Civil Disobedience”, 19) He didn’t just find it to be a justifiable act, but a duty to search for the truth when society in at an absence of it. Socrates isn’t alone. There are plenty of other philosophers like him that believed in the exact same concept.

Amongst all the other famous philosopher to back this concept, Henry David Thoreau was one of the most important. Thoreau was an American philosopher during the 1800’s. He opposed the central government and all of slavery. He wrote an essay on the importance and need of the people to stand up titled, “Civil Disobedience.” Thoreau inspired many across his country to help fight for what they believed in. (“Henry David Thoreau: Civil Disobedience”, 1”

Civil disobedience has constantly been supported through history in various aspects from various views. From the beginning of Christianity to the civil war, civil disobedience has remained to be a shining symbol of

Gandhi for the rights of his people in India. A common example of him and his work is the salt march of 1930. Britain set aside laws that prohibited all indians from collecting and selling salt. They had to buy salt from the outrageous prices of the British. In the face of opposition against his people, Gandhi lead a 240 mile march to the Arabian Sea to collect salt and defy the British government. (“Examples of Civil Disobedience Worldwide”, 1) To this day Gandhi’s salt march is seen as one of the most infamous and successful examples of civil