Letter To Birmingham Jail Analysis

Howard Zinn, American historian, playwright, and social activist, once said, “Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it.” He was talking about civil disobedience. Civil disobedience is the refusal to obey certain laws or government demands for the purpose of influencing legislation or government policy, characterized by the employment of such nonviolent techniques as boycotting, picketing, and nonpayment of taxes according to dictionary.com. Two authors write about civil disobedience in their pieces. Martin Luther King Jr., who was a civil rights activist and minister, according to biography.com, wrote Letter to Birmingham Jail. He writes this letter to fellow clergymen while he is in jail about why he is sent to the jail. Henry David Thoreau, who was a philosopher, journalist, and poet, wrote his essay, Civil Disobedience. Thoreau writes this while in jail because he refuses to pay taxes and accepts that he will go to jail for it. At times, civil disobedience is indeed appropriate and justified, given the right circumstances based on morality. Thoreau writes in his essay Civil Disobedience that “The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally
Morality, according to Merriam-Webster, is, “beliefs about what is right behavior and what is wrong behavior.” When showing civil disobedience, one may use morality to justify why whatever is done, happens. King uses morality to justify his being thrown in jail by telling his clergymen that it is because he was protesting the unfair treatment of African Americans not just in Birmingham, but all over the nation. Thoreau uses morality in his civil disobedience by saying it was done out of his morals of believing that the poll tax for war was wrong. Both of these authors were okay with the fact that the outcome might not be what they wanted, but they were not doing anything