stead, he went to jail to protest and wrote his essay "Civil Disobedience ." His statements were to get people to think and take their approach to the situation.
             Many years after Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience," Dr. Martin Luther King took the same idea of passive resistance to protest the injustices brought upon the Afro-American race in the United States. King used peaceful sit-ins and rallies to unite the black community. Blacks were forced to sit on the back of busses, and use separate bathrooms, water fountains, spaces in restaurants and schools. Segregation made the blacks feel inferior and unequal. King led many black protesters to use banning busses and marches. These non-violent public speech acts eventually led to King's arrest for leading a non-violent march in Birmingham, Alabama.
             While being held in Birmingham Jail, King wrote "The Letter from Birmingham Jail" to his fellow clergymen expressing how disappointed he was with the U.S. and segregation. King wrote, "Any law that uplifts human personality is...All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality." Thoreau wrote his letter that shared King's views about government injustices. Thoreau wrote how disappointed he was with the government by forcing him to p
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