Notes

"Nonviolence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our being (Ghandi)." Non-violent protests have been a way of expressing the opinion of many different people for hundreds of years. Two of the individuals that made the idea of non-violent protest known to the world were Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Aung San Suu Kyi. King displayed forms of non-violence during the Civil Rights movement in the mid 1900’s, while Aung San Suu Kyi used politics and a belief in democracy to non-violently express her views during the on-going Burma crisis. These two non-violent leaders led their people to rise against the injustice they faced in similar yet different ways. While alike in many ways, Aung Sun Suu Kyi and King fought for their people with different use of politics, protest, and unavoidable action. Aung San Suu Kyi is a woman who dreamt of a democratic Burma and has fought for many years to free a people struggling under the lash of a militaristic government. Born as the daughter of General Aung San, the passion for improving her country was in her blood. Since the military-crackdown in 1962 that ended democratic rule in Burma, the Burmese people have been subjected to widespread human rights abuses. Aung San Suu Kyi fought against these abuses by means of political action. She would hold rallies and push for change but was put under house arrest for twenty years. She continued the fight even under the harsh rule and punishment.

Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. He was a Baptist Minister and mostly known for being a social activist. King became more involved with the acts of direct action, more specifically non-violence, after the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. The protest led to removal of bus segregation and only showed how powerful and effective something of that caliber could be. He went on to orangize the