Civil Disobedience

1. Civil Disobedience By: Mahlon Martin, Justin Gooseberry, and Evan Hall

2. What’s Civil Disobedience • Civil Disobedience is going against the government peacefully when you think that something is wrong. • “Unjust laws exist: 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?” Henry David Thoreau believes that men shouldn’t follow unjust laws. If you think that something is completely wrong, why still go along with it? Henry peacefully did this by not paying his nine shillings for the poll tax and had to spend a night in jail.

3. “They cannot spare the protection of the existing government, and they dread the consequences to their property and families of disobedience to it”. Henry David Thoreau thinks that it’s wrong for the government to punish someone’s entire family because of the father not wanting to pay the poll tax. The men are afraid to stand up for what they believe is wrong because they know if they do their property and family would be taken or punished as well.

4. “If a man is thought-free, fancy-free, imagination-free, that which is not never for a long time appearing to be to him, unwise rulers or reformers cannot fatally interrupt him.” Henry David Thoreau believes that even if you are not free by government law, jail, slave, ect, that you are still free in your mind and spirit, even though you aren’t physically free. Henry David Thoreau was a man who believe in standing for what you believe is, but also doing it peacefully.

5. Abolitionist Moment • 1.How was civil disobedience employed in the Abolitionist Movement? Find and explain in detail three examples. • a. Civil disobedience was employed by the Abolitionist Movement because the practice of civil disobedience gave them a reason for a peaceful movement • The Quakers were among the few that questioned the morality of slavery • The Quakers joined the first anti-slavery group in America • Their group had inspired people to many abolitionist groups and by the 1830s abolitionism was in full force and became a major political issue • The core of Quakerism had passed an Act for the Gradual Abolishment of Slavery • They had begun to reach out to others as they abolished slavery among themselves • AnothonyBenzet was one of these Quakers who became renowned in his fight against slavery • Other abolitionist were Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony, and the Grimke sisters

6. b. Harriet Tubman was a major part of the Abolition Movement • Harriet Tubman was a born in 1820 and died in 1913 • She was a runaway slave from Maryland • She made 13 missions to save 70 slaves • She had also helped John Brown recruit men for his raid • She used a network of antislavery activist and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad • Her nickname had become known Moses

7. c. Boston Mob of 1851 • Boston mob rescued fugitive slaves from a US marshal and helped them reach Canada • They had disobeyed the Fugitive Slave Act because all fugitive slaves were supposed to be brought back to their owners • Whoever found them would receive 5,000 dollars

8. Civil Rights Movement • On Feb. 1, 1960, the Greensboro Four, felt isolated and alone as they sat at the whites-only lunch counter at the Woolworth Store on South Elm Street. During this time black were not allowed to sit at tables and order food like whites. Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, and Ezell Blair Jr. and David Richmond, all still teenagers and all freshmen decided to take action. Soon hundreds of people sat in with the 4 college students. The sit-ins lasted off and on for five months before Woolworth and the Kress store down the street agreed to integrate.

9. The Selma to Montgomery marches were three marches in 1965 that marked the political and emotional peak of the American civil rights movement. They grew out of the voting rights movement in Selma, Alabama, launched by local African-Americans who formed the Dallas County Voters League (DCVL). In 1963, the DCVL and organizers from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) began voter-registration work. All lead by Dr Martin Luther king. The first march was called “Bloody Sunday” and took place on March 7, 1965. Alabama state troopers attack civil-rights demonstrators outside Selma, Alabama. Second march was immediately after "Bloody Sunday," on March 9, 1965 King began organizing a second march to be held on Tuesday, March 9, 1965. He issued a call for clergy and citizens from across the country to join him, hundreds answered. Third march was on March 21, 1965 close to 8,000 people assembled at Brown Chapel to commence the trek to Montgomery. Most of the participants were black, but some were white and some were Asian and Latino. The third march spread the marchers' message without harassment by police and segregation supporters. These factors, along with more widespread support from other civil rights organizations in the area, made the march an overall success and gave the demonstration greater impact. When people saw the things being carried out by the state of Alabama (beatings), it helped shift the image of the segregationist movement from one of a movement trying to preserve the social order of the South to a system of state-endorsed terrorism against non-whites

10. After the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in America, racial discrimination became regulated by the so called Jim Crow laws, which made segregation of the races. Segregation was mostly in the South. By 1968 all the forms of segregation had been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and by 1970; support for formal legal segregation had dissolved. Formal racial discrimination was illegal in school systems, businesses, the American military, other civil services and the government. Separate bathrooms, water fountains and schools all disappeared and the civil rights movement had the public's support.

11. Works Cited • "Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862): A Guide to Resources on Henry David Thoreau and Transcendentalism." The Transcendentalists - including Ralph Waldo Emerson - Henry David Thoreau - Others - Dial Magazine. Web. 30 Nov. 2011. <http://www.transcendentalists.com/1thorea.html>. • "Thoreau - Webtext on "Resistance to Civil Government"" Virginia Commonwealth University. Web. 30 Nov. 2011. http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/thoreau/civil/ • Harriet Tubman Life. Web. 05 Dec. 2011. <http://www.harriettubmanbiography.com/>. • Copeland, Larry. "Sit-ins Reignited the Civil Rights Movement 50 Years Ago - USATODAY.com." News, Travel, Weather, Entertainment, Sports, Technology, U.S. & World - USATODAY.com. Web. 05 Dec. 2011. <http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-02-01-sit-ins-civil-rights_N.htm>.