" ... there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience."
While jailed for civil disobedience, Dr. King addressed the concept of laws,
specifically differentiating them from objective morality and genuine justice. Laws are
mere creations of men, and therefore, are reflective of the best and worst human
impulses, opinions, prejudices, and acts selfishness. According to Dr. King, human
history is replete with examples of resistance on the part of individuals and of oppressed
classes of individuals to existing laws that were decidedly unjust by any objective
measure of fairness, justice, and morality in human life.
Dr. King reminds his readers that but for the heroic resistance of early Jews,
Christians, and of individuals like Socrates, unjust laws could never have changed for the
better at all. Dr. King puts the contemporary struggle for human rights through civil
disobedience into perspective for his readers by drawing more recent parallels, such as
those undertaken in earlier eras of American history in conjunction with the fight for
"Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segrega...