Civil Disobedience As A Response To Apathy

3 Pages 797 Words

Racial equality has been a highly charged issue throughout the history of the United States of America. During the 1960’s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., rose to prominence as the premier spokesperson for the civil rights movement, demanding an end to the de facto segregation that existed in defiance of constitutional, and in his opinion moral, law. Nonviolent civil disobedience was the technique of choice for King and his supporters as they attempted to force the established power structure into negotiating the abolition of unjust laws. Jailed in 1963 for participating in one such “direct action” in Birmingham, Alabama, King used his time in prison to pen “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, a measured response to fellow clergymen critical of his actions as untimely threats to order. Repeatedly expressing his disappointment with the apathy of the “white moderate” in his letter, King proves the necessity of direct action to overcome this apathy and achieve true racial equality.
King characterizes the white moderate as one “more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice” (189), and therefore as one incognizant of the reason that society establishes the rule of law. Moral justice, he argues, is the ultimate purpose of the law, and that obedience to an unjust law is as immoral as violence. Furthermore, he recognizes that the unbearable consequences of segregation may seem far removed from the everyday reality of the white moderate. Therefore, direct action in the form of peaceful protest is not only the morally correct course of action, but also pressures the many who prefer to ignore the situation to take a stand by disrupting the comfortable routine of their lives. King writes, “Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection” (189). The goal is not to win wholehearted support in one fell swoop, but to focus attention on segregation and polarize opinions as a starting point.
King also characterizes...