Civil disobedience is the idea that people should respectfully and peacefully resist laws they find immoral. The idea Began in The Mexican American War when the abolitionist Henry David Thoreau refused to pay taxes. He thought that the war would help expand slavery as most of the land won in the war would become slave states. Many would use This idea throughout U.S. history. Civil disobedience has been a positive way to impact a free society.

One example of this was the walk out movement in East Los Angeles. The movement began when Mexican American students left Homeroom before roll call. As school funding was determined by attendance rate. The students did this because the school board would not hear their demands. After a week of protests …show more content…
The pipe was being built from Canada and would have provided both jobs and oil to the U.S.. The pipe was about to go through a burial ground of The Standing Rock Sioux tribe. The tribe began to protest stating that they were not consulted on the pipe, which is a direct violation of U.S. law. The tribe also objects to the pipe as it would go through their water supply and if an oil spill were to occur, could destroy their water supply. The protest stopped construction on the pipe which is a violation of another U.S. law. The movement began to garner support with the use of social media. Causing construction to stop under the Obama administration. Although The Trump administration has restarted construction and 70 members of the protest arrested, the focus on the pipeline and the protests caused the ACLU to join the Tribe in a legal battle in the supreme court.

Hunger striking is another way to engage in civil disobedience. The Provisional IRA prison hunger strike is an example of this. The strike began when The U.K. government would not give back the prisoner of war status to the captured nationalists. This would cause the the prisoners to hunger strike one at a time. During this strike, Bobby sands was elected to The U.K. parliament, and two others were elected to the Irish …show more content…
An example of this would be the shooting that occurred on the anniversary of the Ferguson incident. The police were called in to investigate a reported disturbance as the protesters were using private property, an armed black man at the protest, pulled out a gun and began to fire on the police. This hinders the protests as the shooting caused the news to shift from away police brutality. In addition, some may argue that civil disobedience does not occur if the supreme court rules in favor of the one who did the action, as the perpetrator has not committed a crime as argued by Goldwin. He is missing the point that when the action was taken, it was illegal, and civil disobedience does not always have to go to the supreme court. Some examples being the draft dodgers and the Chicano movement mentioned before. Also Susan B. Anthony was arrested for voting but did not go to the supreme court.

All in all, the act of civil disobedience is a positive way of impacting a free society. With examples being The Chicano movement, Dakota Access Pipeline, hunger strikes of Northern Ireland, and the draft Dodgers. Even though some may argue that civil disobedience does not occur when the supreme court finds the perpetrator innocent, they ignore the fact that the person was still breaking the law and civil disobedience does not always led