''One has moral responsability to disobey unjust laws.''
-MLK
-MLK
Since Martin Luther King Jr. Was a Baptist minister, his philosophy of nonviolent civil disobedience came from the Bible and from his understanding of the teachings of Jesus. But also, some non-Christian ideas influenced King, and one of the most significant was Mahatma Gandhi, who was a spiritual leader during India’s independence (1947). The ideas/philosophies of Gandhi’s showed King that it was possible to advocate for civil rights without violence being placed into the equation. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, was King’s first chance to display Civil Disobedience in his society by being the leader (December 1, 1955). The African-American in Alabama were only allowed to sit in the back of the buses in the city if any white person entered the bus, which obviously sparked even more discontent between races, they protested until could sit anywhere. Two years after, in 1957, King was chosen president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization aiming to provide new leadership for the civil rights movement. He spoke all over the country about civil disobedience and human rights, during his speeches he took many ideas from Christianity and techniques from Gandhi. After travelling to India and meeting with a lot of people (1959),many Gandhi followers supported him for what he did in The Montgomery Bus Boycott.
1963 was notable for civil rights demonstrations and racial conflict, on August 28, King was the leader of a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that placed him on the spotlight. The Freedom March took place in Washington, D.C. And more than 250,000 protestors were present, the Freedom march is considered as the biggest protest ever seen in D.C, and one of the few with such an important television coverage for the époque, thanks to that exposure, the nation could see everything that was going on in Alabama, where the police used fire hoses and attack dogs against the Civil Rights Activists, many were shocked and unhappy with what was going on. During these protests, Martin Luther King Jr., was arrested and put to jail, where he wrote his renowned "Letter from Birmingham City Jail" which advocated for civil disobedience against injustice. April 4, 1968, after many years of advocating for civil rights, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. He was standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had come to lead a peaceful march in support of striking sanitation workers. King used non-violent civil disobedience as a form of revolution. Although his fight for civil rights caused danger to him and his family, Martin Luther King Jr. had the courage and bravery to continue fighting for what was right and promoted racial equality and supported minorities through Civil Disobedience. Sources: https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Martin_Luther_King_Assassination.html https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-resources/major-king-events-chronology-1929-1968 http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-bio.html http://theindependent.ca/2014/01/20/dr-martin-luther-king-strategies-and-tactics-of-civil-disobedience/ |
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