Thoreau's Civil Disobedience, Vs. Martin Luther King Jr.

As society faced great inequities in the 19th and 20th centuries, activists and philosophers sought to inform the general public. At the turn of the 19th century, Thoreau presented his writing of a "Civil Disobedience" as an argument of the injustices of the tyrannical government after spending a night in jail. Likewise, Martin Luther King Jr. presented his argument to society as he was jailed in 1963. In his "Letter from Birmingham Jail," King perceives the injustice of the African American community as a primary goal as to the need for the advocation of the whole population. Whereas in Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience," it addresses the injustices in broader terms and stresses the despotic government. Both King and Thoreau address these arguments in similar and divergent fashions through the use of purpose, and persuasive writing styles.

King urges the pacifist man to view the importance of the demonstration morally. Whereby King states that much of the population "[are] more devoted to "order" than to justice; …[they] prefer a negative peace." Likewise, Thoreau presents a similar argument. He exemplifies that society has turned traditional, and it is up to man to "bend it to his will." He explores the question of "Why has every man a conscience, then?" Thoreau wants man to individually think for themselves, and to morally decide what is right and wrong: ‘self-individualism'. Both urge the importance of freeing from traditional