Gandhi's Role In Civil Disobedience

“Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), American philosopher, essayist, and poet, was born in Concord, Massachusetts. Following his graduation from Harvard University (1837), he worked for a short time as a teacher, but quit over his disagreement with the practice of punishing students by whipping them”(Axelrod, Alan and Phillips 202). Thoreau wrote an essay called The Civil Disobedience that was based on his life experience, “he was jailed one night for his refusal to pay a poll tax to support the United States’ war on Mexico, an experience that led to the essay “Resistance to Civil Government” (1849) later titled “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience” (Axelrod, Alan and Phillips 202). Thoreau supported the idea that an individual should protest the
These people were faced with discriminating laws, for example the Salt March of 1930 which oppressed the Indian’s lifestyle. Gandhi followed the “Hindu principles, which included vegetarianism as well as alcohol and sexual abstinence, he found London restrictive initially, but once he had found kindred spirits he flourished, and pursued the philosophical study of religions, including Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism and others, having professed no particular interest in religion up until then” (“Mahatma Gandhi”). Gandhi had identified the British rule as an injustice because “Indians were prohibited from collecting or selling salt—Britain had a monopoly on that staple product, and taxed it heavily” (Begley). In order to protest what Gandhi believed in, he “assembled his supporters in 1930 to march 240 mi. from his ashram to the Arabian Sea to collect salt from the ocean”(Begley). In the end, Gandhi and his support “more than 60,000 Indians were arrested for breaking the salt law” (Begley). The idea of marching to the Arabian Sea was a perfect non-violent protest activity that involved majority Indians who shared common grievances. As the consequence of the protest, “Gandhi was granted bargaining rights at a negotiation in London. India didn’t see freedom until 1947” (Begley). Finally, Gandhi’s involvement of coordinated protest against a tax on salt in
displayed traits of being a wise minority. Dr. King represented the struggle for African Americans to have political equality in the United States. “Martin Luther King, Jr., was born Michael Luther King, Jr., on January 15, 1929. He adopted the name Martin in the mid-1930s to match his father's name change—although he remained "Mike" to his closest friends. The oldest son of a powerful and influential black minister, Martin was raised within a comfortable environment—albeit one limited by the constraints of the segregated South”. (Queen) Throughout his life he constantly saw segregation between people of different skin color. Dr. King first action as a civil right activists was protesting bus in Montgomery, Alabama that were segregated racially (Tavaana) “King was able to develop an effective response to her arrest that involved the entire community. King mobilized Montgomery's African American community to boycott the city's public transportation, demanding equal rights for all citizens on public transportation there” (Tavaana). Martin Luther King Jr. represents wise minority because he stood up against