Civil Disobedience In Rosa Park's 'A Letter From Birmingham Jail'

All American citizens give up some of their personal liberties for the good of society: it is the basis of the constitution and every law. When citizens feel a law is unjust, they have two options: follow it or fight it. While the usual method of fighting it involves legal challenges or petitioning legislators, civil disobedience has achieved much notoriety after its famed success during the Civil Rights movement. The Framework for a Free Society describes a free society as one in which government “is constrained by the rule of law under which every individual and entity is treated equally.” A free society stresses toleration and respect of differences in belief and culture. Thus, peaceful resistance positively impacts a free society as it
Rosa Park’s refusal to give up her seat on the bus and Martin Luther King Jr.’s penning of “A Letter from Birmingham Jail” helped catapult the civil rights movement into action because their peaceful defiances of laws brought national attention to the injustice the government imposed on them without allowing violence to rationalize their punishments. Edward Snowden gave up his government job and any chance of living unnoticed in America by being a whistleblower for a gross overreach by the government, sharing documents to inform the people how their liberties were being imposed upon because he did not “want to live in a society that does these sort of things,” (Gurdian). He released no information putting another life in danger when he broke a law meant to keep him silent, classifying his actions as civil disobedience. Snowden’s leak to the public engendered national uproar demanding people’s liberties be respected, causing speedier and longer-lasting change than any legal route would have brought. Snowden’s actions show the necessity of peaceful resistance to uphold a free society's protection against government