CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

Civil Disobedience

Civil Disobedience

Civil disobedience contrasts with acts of warfare against the state, such as assassination, sabotage, terrorism, riot, insurrection, and revolution. The civil disobedient engages in a kind of resistance within the accepted political structure, a violation of the law without loss of respect for law and the other basic political institutions.

The best-known statements on civil disobedience and the civil rights movement in the United States is the “Letter From the Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King Jr., who wrote this letter following his arrest for refusing to halt a large civil disobedience campaign. Although aware of Thoreau's writings, ...