Martin Luther King Jr On Civil Disobedience

This paper will discuss what Martin Luther King Jr., Fredrick Douglass, Henry David Thoreau, and Benazir Bhutto have to say about civil disobedience; though coming from different backgrounds they still have the same views or beliefs. This will be done by looking at Martin Luther King Jr.’s work The Letter from Birmingham Jail, Fredrick Douglass’s from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, and Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience and comparing what these authors have in common. Most of these authors, if not all, have these themes in common: understanding human rights, the relationship between just and unjust laws, and the difference between human law and a “higher law”. Martin Luther King Jr. was a civil rights
Once Thoreau graduated, he started to keep a journal which contained his beliefs on the seriousness, determination, and elevation of moral values. Thoreau’s philosophy was based on the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, an English poet named Samuel Taylor, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe who was a German dramatist and thinker (Thoreau 301). Thoreau was eventually thrown into jail for not paying a poll tax. While Thoreau was in jail he started to figure out that he could not stand behind his government when it came to slavery. Thoreau brings up that, “it is not only appropriate but imperative to disobey unjust laws” (302). If a law affects one’s conscience then one should disobey
They may not be exactly related but they do share some of the same views. One of the views King and Thoreau do share is their belief on just and unjust laws. King defines a ‘just law’ as, “a manmade code that squares with the moral law or the law of God,” and also defines an ‘unjust law’ as, “a code that is out of harmony with the moral law” (King 382). The definition King gives makes people think about what to do about unjust laws? Do unjust laws exist? Thoreau answers King’s question by saying, “Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them and obey them until we have succeeded or shall we transgress them at once?” (Thoreau 311-312). Later on Thoreau answers his own question by saying, “if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say break the law” (312). King completely agrees with Thoreau and confirms it by stating, “One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the community of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law” (King 384). King is trying to communicate that if a law affects one’s