Nonviolent Resistance

“The greatest nonviolent resistance is that even as man is faced with tyranny, and the resulting suffering, he responds to hate with love, to prejudice with tolerance, to arrogance with humility, to humiliation with dignity, and to violence with reason.” (-Lou Xia) Peaceful resistance has a positive impact on society. Throughout Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s entire lifetime, he used peaceful resistance to voice the segregation policy of America against black people. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi used peaceful resistance during India’s struggle to gain independence from Great Britain. Henry David Thoreau also advocated peaceful resistance by protesting against paying his taxes. Peaceful resistance provides the democracy with a nonviolent tactic to reject an unjust law rather than the system as a whole.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used peaceful resistance to raise awareness for the
He became the leading figure in India’s struggle to gain independence from Great Britain. Gandhi was imprisoned several times. He undertook a number of hunger strikes to protest the oppression of India’s poorest classes, among other injustices. He continued to work for peace between Hindus and Muslims. Gandhi was later shot to death in Delhi in January 1948 by a Hindu fundamentalist. Gandhi’s protest not only changed the world by sparking a new relationship between the Muslims and Hindus, but he also used peaceful resistance to promote recognition of the problems between the Hindus and Muslims. Henry David Thoreau wrote “Civil Disobedience” in 1849. In “Civil Disobedience” Thoreau stated that if the government is unjust and partial then the people have no reason to follow its law. Thoreau participated in protest by not paying his taxes which he thought were unjust and he went to jail for this disobedience. Thoreau’s philosophy influenced the political thoughts of Martian Luther King Jr. and