What Is The Cause Of Civil Disobedience?

Martin Luther King Jr. was a widely known minister, activist and political leader in the American history. But he excelled for his role in the Civil Rights Movement, which was a way of civil disobedience. When arrested and held prisoner in Birmingham jail for protesting without a permit King wrote the famous Letter from Birmingham Jail as a response to the Clergymen that argued that the problem of racism should be solved by the locals and King and his people were just ‘outsiders’ causing more trouble and that he wasn’t following the protocol for civil disobedience. In his letter King stated that he and his people tried countless times to talk to the authorities but were ignored and were ‘victims of false promises’ every time; this didn’t leave

These are: Collection of the facts, Negotiation, Self-purification and Direct action. First, collection of the facts consists of investigating about the political and social issues going on to make sure that the moral cause for what the civil disobedience is done is veridical. In this case, the facts were that Birmingham was the most segregated city, African American didn’t have access to vote and were treated as second class citizens. Next, negotiation is to find a way to solve the problems that would work out for both, the authority and the community, by meeting up – or at least trying to – with the authority. Consequently, the step of self-purification is about preparing yourself mentally to break the law and its consequences. And the direct action is to finally proceed with the civil disobedience. In addition, King’s theory of civil disobedience is correlated with his faith, Christianity. He argued that not all laws must be obeyed because there are two types of laws. A just and an unjust law. A just law is the one that must always be obeyed for it is human-made and squares with the law – Word – of God and an unjust law is the one who must always be disobeyed for it’s a human law that goes against any religious teachings. Therefore, King believed that any law that goes against the natural law – God’s law and principles - is an unjust law, just as Thomas Aquinas stated. “An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.” Therefore, if said law doesn’t uplift people’s humanity we have the right to break it. And in his case, fight for it to be