Protest and revolution are reactions that can be perceived as necessary when one wants to
change one’s current situation. Throughout history, various individuals and groups of people
with similar interests and desires have rallied to protest or revolt against their government.
Imagine that, currently, a group of people has decided to protest or revolt against the American
government. Carefully read your three sources, and synthesize information from all three
sources; incorporate it into a well-developed essay that identifies the key issues associated with
protest and revolution and examines their implications for the American community
(governments’ responsibility to its citizens and the citizens’ responsibility to their government).
Make sure that your argument is central; use the sources to illustrate and support your
reasoning. Avoid merely summarizing the sources. Indicate clearly which sources you are
drawing from, whether through direct quotation, paraphrase, or summary. You may cite the
sources as Source A, Source B, etc. or by using the descriptions in parentheses.
Source A (Thoreau)
Source B (King)
Source C (Jefferson)
Here is the brief introductory information that you would normally see printed at the top of the sources
the AP exam asks you to consider prior to writing your synthesis essay:
From “Civil Disobedience”, by Henry David Thoreau
 The following was Henry D. Thoreau’s motivation for writing “Civil Disobedience”: He was
arrested and imprisoned in Concord, MA, for one night in 1846 for nonpayment of his poll tax.
This act of defiance was a protest against slavery and against the Mexican War, which Thoreau
and other abolitionists regarded as a means to expand the slave territory.
Letter from Birmingham Jail, by Martin Luther King, Jr.
 King and nearly 50 other protestors and civil rights leaders had been arrested after leading a
Good Friday demonstration as part of the Birmingham Campaign, designed to bring national
attention to the brutal, racist treatment suffered by blacks in one of the most segregated cities
in America—Birmingham, Alabama. For months, an organized boycott of the city’s whiteowned-and-operated businesses had failed to achieve any substantive results, leaving King and
others convinced they had no other options but more direct actions, ignoring a recently passed
ordinance that prohibited public gathering without an official permit. For King, this arrest—his
13th—would become one of the most important of his career. Thrown into solitary
confinement, King was initially denied access to his lawyers or allowed to contact his wife, until
President John F. Kennedy was urged to intervene on his behalf. As previously agreed upon, King
was not immediately bailed out of jail by his supporters, having instead agreed to a longer stay
in jail to draw additional attention to the plight of black Americans.
The Declaration of Independence, by Thomas Jefferson
 The American Revolution was a political upheaval that took place between 1765 and 1783
(open warfare occurring, 1775–83) during which colonists in the 13 American colonies rejected
the British monarchy and aristocracy, overthrew the authority of Great Britain, and founded
the United State of America. In 1775, Jefferson was elected to the Continental Congress. He
drafted the Declaration of Independence, signed on July 4, 1776.