“Letter from Birmingham Jail” and “Resistance to Civil Government” compassion. Aside from man fighting for freedom or beliefs, the question is whether one person can make a difference using words instead of wars. In “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and “Resistance to Civil Government” by Martin Luther King Jr. and Henry David Thoreau, it has been proved that words can work in society but in the right manner.
Injustice is a very important thing to King and Thoreau when it comes to the people and themselves. Though the stories are both similar, they have their differences in how they changed the world. They changed the world by sharing their beliefs to people to stand up for what they believe into the government. The similarities between civil and political change and the accepentance of the consequences that were bestowed against both opinions will be mentioned. Also, the differences of the end to segregation and promoting to stop slavery between the stories will be seen. Change for the people is what makes the world keep going.
King saw inequality for the African Americans and wanted a change for his people. Thoreau saw intolerance and wanted a change in the American government. Both of these intelligent men wrote their ideas about what they saw and felt could be done about injustice. King said, “A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law.” King is saying that judging innocent people is injustice. Thoreau said, “Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? …
The Term Paper on Civil Disobedience Thoreau Government People
Summary Thoreau begins Civil Disobedience by saying that he agrees with the motto, "That government is best which governs least." Indeed, he says, men will someday be able to have a government that does not govern at all. As it is, government rarely proves useful or efficient. It is often "abused and perverted" so that it no longer represents the will of the people. The "javascript: ...
Must the citizen ever for a moment, or the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then. I think we should be men first, and subject afterward.” Thoreau is questioning democracy and why the government makes the rules. They are both saying not to give into the government if you don’t agree with the rule. That is the similar civil and political change they made.
Accepting a consequence for something unfair for someone else does not seem right. King and Thoreau went through it and changed the world. King quotes, “I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for the law.” He is accepting going to jail and with the community knowing injustice, they should pressure the government. Thoreau quotes, “I did not for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar. I felt as if I alone of all my townsmen had paid my tax.
They plainly did not know how to treat me, but behaved like persons who are underbred.” He has accepted where he is and what he did to get there though it was unfair. Those are how they similarly accepted the consequences that were presented to them. Putting an end to something takes a lot of dedication, time and strategy. To King it was segregation.
King said, “All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority… Hence segregation is not only politically, economically, and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful.” That is his way to ending segregation. Thoreau on the other hand, promoted his opinion to stop slavery.
He said’ “when a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, … , I think that it is not too soon for honest man to rebel and revolutionize.” That was Thoreau’s way of putting an end to slavery. Both of these men put a stop to two important things that was needed to be stopped. It was mentioned whether a person could make a difference by using words other than war. It was proved that this statement it true from all the information that has been covered. I said that both stories had similarities and differences in some of the categories I listed.
The Essay on Martin Luther King and Henry DavidThoreau
However with different motives; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Henry David Thoreau were both admirable men that strived for a better government. As respected spokesmen they served as rebels against what they thought to be bad one’s stopping at nothing. Not even jail. Henry David Thoreau and Martin Luther King Jr. were both brilliant men. Thoreau’s “Civil Obedience” and Dr. ...
Those categories have their proof through quotes of the writers. These two men did a miraculous job fighting for what they believed in and using the right manner to get it across. What has become of the information is words will get the job done; you just have to know how to use them. King and Thoreau had the same ideas, but viewed them a little differently.
They got what they wanted and made everyone else happy as well.
