Civil Disobedience
By: Grace Reddick, Dylan Wright and Shawqi Musallam
“If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this
year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it
would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit
violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the
definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is
possible.”
Thoreau is saying that even if we do not resist through
blood and war, we are still shedding the blood of others by
not resisting at all. Therefor the most just and logical way
to resist is peaceably. If we resist through peaceful means
then we are standing for what we believe in, saving those
who we are fighting for, and sparing the blood of innocent
men.
“In other words, when a sixth of the population of a nation which
has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a
whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign
army, and subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon
for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty
the more urgent is that fact that the country so overrun is not our
own, but ours is the invading army.”
Thoreau uses direct examples of the injustices of our
country at the time in this quotation. He is showing that even if
we ourselves are not being harmed or mistreated, that we are
still obligated to rebel. We cannot sit idly by as our country over
runs another or takes the freedoms of innocent men. It is our
duty to rebel, and by not rebelling we are just as much to blame
as our country for the injustices at hand.
“Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true
place for a just man is also a prison.”
This quote gives insight to the theory of peaceful
resistance. Even if you are not in violation of the law, if
another man is in jail for the color of his skin or his heritage,
that lived an honest life just as you did, than you should be
jailed too, as long as this other man is unjustly jailed with
you.
One example of how civil disobedience is portrayed through the
Civil Rights Movement was in 1968 when the Memphis clergyman James
Lawson made it clear to Martin Luther King that the sanitation workers in
Memphis were losing pay and majority of them consisted of 90% black
populated. They had bad sanitation where they worked, and the machines
and equipment were worn. The dispute broke out when a malfunctioning
machine killed two workers. There was no insurance plan provided plus
the families receiving no help or pays for more than over a month. They
were barely accompanied with the funeral costs. The Association of
Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees menaced a strike to fight
for better working conditions in Memphis. When it failed, the workers
went on a legitimate strike and made a protest ending in violence when
police forces showed up and put a stop to it all. James Lawson gained a
higher role in the strike committee as chairman and got Martin Luther
King to help the situation and speak at a meeting. What King spoke of
caused concern among some as he connected the whole campaign against
poverty, the civil rights battle, and the war in Vietnam. He threw out his
opinion that all the money being spent on the war was what was standing
in the way of the improvement in America’s system of welfare. The protest
stated that they were going to shut down the nation’s capital through a civil
disobedience until the government agreed to abolish poverty throughout
America.
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks,
an African American, made one of the first
movements leading to the Civil Rights
Movement. After a hard days work, Rosa
stepped onto a full city bus and sat down in
a seat. A white passenger stepped on and
the driver asked her to move to the back.
However, Rosa protested and stood her
ground; she would not give up her seat for a
white person just because she was a
different color. After refusing, she was
arrested for violating an Alabama law that
stated that black people were to give up
their seat to a white person when the bus
was full. This civil disobedience Rosa acted
out started the Montgomery Bus Boycott
where blacks boycotted buses until they
were allowed to seat wherever they wanted
to on a bus.
In the era of the 1960’s, four black students attending North
Carolina A&T College sat down at a Woolworth lunch counter in
Greensboro, North Carolina. They had purchased items and then sat
down at the counter. A waiter came up and said these seats were
reserved for white people and asked them to move. However, they
politely refused. Shockingly they were not arrested and remained at
the counter until closing time. The following morning there were
more and more blacks coming to sit at the lunch counter and soon
started a campaign called the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee establishing leadership to support the discrimination.
After the establishing of the SNCC, there were students in more
than 30 restaurants on 7 streets going up to lunch counters
preforming sit-ins. They portrayed civil disobedience by going
against laws including the Jim Crow Law, etc. and against
discrimination.
The Abolitionist Movement:
• The abolitionist movement was to end slavery.
• The abolitionist movement started when slavery
started, but was not organized or as powerful.
• Many people supported this cause such as John Brown,
Henry D. Thoreau, Fredrick Douglass, and Garrison.
John Brown and the raid of Harpers
Ferry
•
On October 16, 1859, John Brown and his
supporters went to the town of Harpers Ferry
•
They headed for the arsenal, and they fought the
local militia, and the US Marines lead by Robert E. Lee
•
They lost a lot of supporters, and Brown was
captured, charged with treason against the state of
Virginia, murder, and slave insurrection
•
He was sentenced to death, and was hanged on December 2, 1859
Henry David Thoreau
• Henry Thoreau did not support slavery so he took action
• He did not pay poll tax because he did not
agree with the government for
having slavery
• He had to stay in jail for one day and he
wrote civil disobedience about his time in jail
Frederick Douglass
• Frederick Douglass was a big
help to the Abolitionist movement, he
• He escaped from being held as a
slave
• He made a book, newspaper,
and helped in many organizations
to end slavery
William Lloyd Garrison, in
Boston:
•
The newspaper “Liberator” written by Garrison gave
views
to how the abolitionist think.
•
His newspaper was famous and
read by most, it was supported
by free African Americans
•
He excited the abolitionist crowd by
burning copies of the
Constitution and Fugitive slave law
Work Cited
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•
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