Prepared by Kathy Kaplan
Media Specialist, Carusi Middle School
(For Readings, Arrow Down)
1. Names and dates of all three people on the board
Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862)
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929 – 1968)
2. Students read aloud through the articles on each person. As new words come up, students can write these definitions in their MAC journals:
Civil - Citizen
Civil disobedience: From Henry David Thoreau - Disobeying an unjust law.
Satyagraha: From Mahatma Gandhi - A combination of civil disobedience, courage, non-violence and truth.
Segregation – separation of races
Desegregation – races are together
Integration – the same as de-segregation – the races come together
Non-violent resistance – From Martin Luther King – Same as civil disobedience
3. Discuss: Is there use today for nonviolent resistance? Who could use it? Are there groups today that could learn about passive resistance? (Instead of terrorism?)
4. Discuss: These men never met each other—how did they influence each other?
By reading.
· Discuss/write:
1. Can reading change your life? Change the world?
2. What lesson can we learn from these 3 men?
3. Would you ever use nonviolent resistance (civil disobedience) in your own life? When? Why?
4. Can nonviolent resistance (civil disobedience) be used today to make the world better?
MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY READINGS
HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817 – 1862)
Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts in 1817. He came from a family that was not wealthy or distinguished. He worked for a while in his father’s pencil factory. He was a teacher for a while, but quit the job in protest when he saw a student being beaten for bad behavior.
Thoreau came to believe that people must be free to act according to their own idea of right and wrong, without government interference. For two years, he lived alone in a cabin near Walden Pond (actually a big lake) near Concord, Mass. He wanted to live with only the essential things in life.
He felt that people should refuse to obey any government rule they believe is unjust. Thoreau practiced the doctrine of passive resistance when he refused to pay poll taxes. He did so to express his opposition to slavery . The poll taxes would go to a government that supported slavery. In the summer of 1846, Thoreau was arrested and jailed for non-payment of his poll tax. A friend came to visit him in jail. The friend asked him, “Why are you in jail?” Thoreau answered, “Why are you out of jail?”
While Thoreau was in jail, he wrote his essay “Civil Disobedience”. In it, Thoreau stated that men should not “cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right”.
Gandhi was born in India in 1869. He became known as “Mahatma” Gandhi, a name which means “Great Soul”.
Gandhi’s family moved to South Africa, where he lived for many years. There, he read many books, including the Henry David Thoreau’s essay on Civil Disobedience.
He developed his own method of civil disobedience, which he called satyagraha. It was a combination of civil disobedience, courage, non-violence, and truth. In his method, the way people behave is more important than what they achieve. He used his methods of satyagraha to improve the life of other Indians living in South Africa.
Gandhi and his family moved back to India. India had been ruled by the British for about 300 years. Gandhi decided to use his non-violent methods to gain Indian independence. Since he didn’t want his people to fight for independence, they had to do other things—march, lie down in the streets, strike, fast, or boycott British goods.
Gandhi’s first action was to protest against the Salt Acts, which made it a crime to possess salt not bought from the (British) government. Gandhi and hundreds of followers marched to the sea where they disobeyed the law and made salt from sea water.
The British also managed almost all of the clothing production in India. To protest, Gandhi encouraged Indians to wear only Indian-made cloth, known as “khadi”. Indians could weave this cloth at home, and not spend money on British cloth.
Gandhi spent many years in jail. He was happy to do so, because it helped him to challenge British laws that he felt were bad for Indians. He encouraged other Indians to disobey the laws and to “fill the jails”.
In 1945, the British finally gave up their rule in India, and India became an independent nation. Gandhi is honored by the people of India as the father of their nation.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR (1929 – 1968)
Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia. Even as a child, King loved books and was an excellent speaker.
When King was in college, he read and re-read Henry David Thoreau’s essay, Civil Disobedience.
King went to Crozer Theological Seminary to become a minister. While he was there, he heard a lecture by a professor about the Indian pacifist, Mahatma Gandhi. That lecture provided the direction King was looking for in his life.
The lecture was “so profound and electrifying,” King later said, “that I left the meeting and bought a half dozen books on Gandhi’s life and works.” By 1950, King began to think that non-violent resistance could help black Americans win their freedom in the United States.
King became the pastor at a Baptist church in Montgomery, Alabama. In that city, segregation (like separation) was the law. For blacks and whites, there were separate restaurants, schools, drinking fountains, stores and hotels. Public transportation had separate seating for blacks and whites. In 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat for a white person.
King organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Black Americans refused to ride on public buses until the seating was integrated. During the weeks of the boycott, the bus companies lost so much money, that they had to give in to black demands.
King also encouraged “sit-ins” at restaurants, so that blacks could win the right to be served. He also organized a march on Washington, D.C. to protest that many blacks were not allowed to vote in the South.
In Birmingham Alabama, King went to jail. There he wrote his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”. In it, King said there were two kinds of laws. There were just laws and unjust laws. A person has a duty to obey just laws, and a person also has a duty to oppose unjust laws.
King encouraged young blacks in Birmingham to protest and go to jail. He wanted to “fill the jails”, just as Gandhi had done in India. People around the country saw the news on TV, and saw the brutal way the police treated black Americans in Birmingham. The blacks won sympathy from the country, and in the end, they were victorious in Birmingham, Alabama as well.
In 1963, Martin Luther King led a March on Washington to demand jobs and freedom. There he gave his famous “I have a Dream” speech. In 1964, he won the Nobel Peace Prize.
In 1968, King was assassinated while he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis Tennessee. On his gravestone were a few words of the African American hymn that King had loved. He had used these words to end his “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963. The words were:
Free at last, free at last,
Thank God Almighty, I’m free at last.
· Discuss/write:
1. Can reading change your life? Change the world?
2. What lesson can we learn from these 3 men?
3. Would you ever use nonviolent resistance (civil disobedience) in your own life? When? Why?
4. Can nonviolent resistance (civil disobedience) be used today to make the world better?