Robert Manaog
English 1A
MW 4:30-5:45
Title

An effective government should always implement safety and security for all the people that it governs, although sometimes, the government of a nation passes civil laws that are considerably “unjust”. While facing injustice on the own hands of its government, it is not difficult for somebody to speak out against it. Henry David Thoreau and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. both did that, both of them are brave enough to follow their hearts and conscience to fight the unjust system that their government implements; and because of this both men face the consequences of jail time for disobeying certain civil laws. Thoreau in his piece “Civil Disobedience” he discusses the notion that a society must overcome the strong “hold of government to realize their own principles and morals, and not follow the conscience of government. King on the other hand wrote “Letter from Birmingham Jail” which criticizes the injustice brought to black community in a period of racial segregation and unfair treatments of blacks throughout the nation. Although both men wrote essays in which they denounce certain aspects of social injustice, Thoreau’s style focus on individualism, as he protest alone against slavery and injustice during Mexican war; King meanwhile, encouraged its community to unify against racial segregation in order to break the bonds of racial discrimination.

Although Thoreau lived more than 100 years before the time of King, Thoreau’s thinking remained influential and inspirational for King. King’s letter corresponds with Thoreau’s feelings against the American government in that both men disagree that African Americans should be held as slaves or in King’s time segregated and discriminated. Thoreau’s opinion about slavery as he confirms that a “minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority”(Thoreau 22) indicates