Civil disobedience and non-violent protesting has been apart of human history for hundreds, if not thousands of years. People like Mahatma Gandhi have utilized civil disobedience and non-violent protesting to fight for Indian independence from British rule and for the rights of the Indian poor. Mahatma Gandhi called this “Satyagraha.” Satyagraha roughly translates to “truth force”. Another famous person who adopted and was inspired by Gandhi’s approach of non-violence was Martin Luther King Jr. Both renowned leaders brought change to the world through their philosophy and leadership. You cannot talk about Martin Luther King Jr. without first mentioning Mahatma Gandhi, and through out this paper I will analyze the approaches used by Martin Luther King Jr. with revere to Gandhi, and Kings social ethics that helped shaped the civil rights movement. Civil disobedience and non-violence brings some shortcomings, but the advantages to the strategy, have been effective in political and social movements such as in the American Civil Rights Movement.
The philosophy of civil disobedience is nonviolence and this differs from other forms of resistance. Civil disobedience is refusing to obey certain laws without using any form of violent actions. People know that the laws are wrong and unjust. Henry D. Thoreau in his essay on civil disobedience writes about unjust laws saying, “Shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them.” This remark from Thoreau is very similar to the letter Martin Luther King wrote responding to his fellow clergymen in the Birmingham jail, who said his actions are unwise and untimely and how they should sit back and let the courts handle the ensuing situation. Thoreau and Gandhi impressed King with the moral obligation not to cooperate with injustice, to break man-made rules if need be. Even if the government forces these laws into legislation, you must do what is right says the philosophy.
You don’t have to eliminate the laws; you just don’t have to follow them. Other philosophies embrace violence to accomplish political or social gains. The Black Panther party for example said it is ok to use violence in self- defense. These views are extremely different philosophies. They also produce extremely different results. Civil disobedience has the mentality and philosophy of moral high ground by being in the right. Martin Luther King, as mention earlier, spent time in jail for exercising civil disobedience. This is why his letter from a Birmingham jail was is so famous and resonated with people. King continued to protests and further hone is practices and disobediet philosophy, but how has King come to his ethics/philosophy?
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Martin Luther King Jr. in 1948 was ordained to the Christian ministry. He attended Morehouse College, Crozer Theological Seminary, and Boston University, where he earned a doctorate in philosophical theology. In 1964, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace . Martin Luther King Jr. started to take an interest in Gandhi after listening to a speech by Dr. Mordecai, the president of Howard University, on the teachings of Gandhi and it was from there on that Martin Luther King Jr. began to fester his thoughts ideas and social ethics. In the journal, An Exegesis of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Social Philosophy by Donald H. Smith, Martin Luther King had this to say,
“Gandhi was probably the first person in history to lift the love ethic of Jesus above mere interaction between individuals to a powerful and effective social force on a large scale. Love for Gandhi was a potent instrument of social and collective transformation. It was in this Gandhian emphasis on love and nonviolence that I discovered the method of social reform that I had been seeking for so many months. (…) I found in the nonviolent resistance philosophy of Gandhi. I came to feel that this was the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.”
There was much in Gandhi that appealed to King: love, nonviolence, humility, self-sacrifice, the obligation to take action against social evils, as well as other concomitants to these principles. Much of Gandhi’s philosophies would go into the formulation of the philosophy and technique of King’s social protest. It is also important to mention other theologians King studied, and the lessons he took from them. Donald H. Smith writes in; An Exegesis of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Social Philosophy, “Walter Rauschenbusch, an American theologian, showed King the role of the pulpit (a raised stand for preacher) in effecting social change. Reinhold Niebuhr awakened King to the fallacies of the doctrines of inevitable progress and explained nonviolence as the ideal technique for Negro Americans to use in achieving emancipation. Edgar S. Brightman, L. Harold DeWolf and Boston University Theological School introduced him to personalism and gave him metaphysical insights into the values of human personality. Hegel, a German philosopher, demonstrated that social, or any change, for that matter, could be wrought only through conflict.” King brought together many interpretations from many different theologians who helped shape his philosophy, and builds the ethics on which to conduct a civil rights movement that would change history forever.
In King’s letter from a Birmingham jail, King expresses his four steps to a nonviolent campaign of civil disobedience and the importance and timeliness of the matter. A non-violent campaign is one that stirs up tension within a community or nation till we can no longer sit ideally by. Civil disobedience and the willingness to face the consequences to show that we will not go peacefully by, is of course a nonviolent campaign and in any nonviolent campaign Martin Luther King Jr. says there are four basics steps.
“1. Collecting of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive. 2. Negotiation. 3. Self-purification and 4. Direct action.” These are the steps that make up any good non-violent campaign. Martin Luther says “We started having workshops on non-violence and repeatedly asked ourselves the questions, are you able to accept without retaliating, are you able to endure the ordeals of jail?” What they’re doing here is presenting their bodies as a means of laying their case before the conscience of the local and national community. When there are unjust laws in place, direct action is required so that negotiation can get started. “Non-violent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is force to confront the issue.” Now lets walk through the steps and analyze them individually. 1. Collecting of the facts. The facts are in, there are injustices afoot. 2. Negotiation. Negotiations were not heard 3. Self-purification. Accept we are willing to accept without retaliation and, 4. Direct action. As King put, “create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the doors for negotiation and change.”
The philosophy of civil disobedience has some shortcomings that make it difficult to embrace for some movements. Immediate versus non-immediate payoffs is the number one shortcoming. Where a violent protest may give a protester instant gratification by seeing physical results, nonviolent protests requires high patience. This is a long-term benefit. Some are not patient enough to embrace the philosophy and obtain results. The definition of civil disobedience can vary between individuals within a movement.
Some people will see nonviolence differently than others due to personal experiences. Not everyone will be on the same page, so levels of non-violence will be different. This can completely damage the whole movement. Non-violent philosophy requires a higher knowledge about the movement and its goals. This shortcoming means anyone can embrace violence and it is easy to pick up a weapon to use. It is far more difficult to digest why you shouldn’t use violence and requires teaching to large amounts of people in order to be effective. Civil disobedience requires a leader who is very patient and intelligent, that is why Revered Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. made for a great man to be the leader and spokesperson for the Civil Right Movement.
There are multiple advantages to the philosophy of civil disobedience. It is very hard for a government to fight back against nonviolence. Governments only have armies, navies, national guard, etc. These entities are built around the theories of violence. It is impossible to justify using violence against nonviolent people. If a government does fight back, the violence portrayed against peaceful protestors is seen as not the norm. This will gain the movement media attention for their cause. This attention will draw more support for the movement. Civil disobedience gains the movement respect in a different manner than violence. Violence creates fear. Fear doesn’t accomplish anything it just perpetuates more violence. Instead of violence creating more violence, the non-violent acts gain respect. It shows that you are intelligent and mindful of the laws. This shows that your group is not quick to revert to violence, rather to sit and talk about things and make real progress.
Another advantage is that civil disobedience conveys moral superiority. This lifts the spirits of people inside and outside of your organization. It will have a snowball effect and lead to further nonviolence. If nonviolence can be adhered to, it will grow upon itself from this moral superiority.
Martin Luther King Jr. undoubtedly was a man of great moral ethics, leadership, and understanding/knowledge of social injustices and civil disobedience. The approaches used by Gandhi shaped much of Martin Luther King Jr. philosophy, and social ethics. Civil disobedience and non-violence does have its shortcoming, but the advantages to the strategy, have been effective in political and social movements such as in the American Civil Rights Movement. The core of King’s philosophy is the theory of nonviolent resistance to evil.
According to King, “All individuals have a moral obligation to refuse to cooperate with evil, though this noncooperation must always be non-violent.” This, together with his religious faith, was the basis of his firm conviction that civil disobedience is morally and practically the best means an oppressed people have for gaining freedom. From the teachings of Christ and Gandhi, King learned the power of love in countering evil. Christ provided the spiritual impetus Gandhi supplied the method and we owe a lot to the ideology King and Gandhi instilled in the world.
