Civil Disobedience

                 Webster Dictionary defines civil disobedience as refusal to obey governmental demands or commands especially as a nonviolent and usually collective means of forcing concessions from the government. When there is a miscommunication between the government and the public, civil disobedience is one of the most effective movements to change the government’s opinion. Peaceful civil rights movements such as Anti- Vietnam protests, Indian Independence Movement, and civil rights movements of the 1960s are all powerful examples of civil disobedience. The Anti- Vietnam War protests are prime examples of effective civil disobedience. After World War II, America and Russia entered into a rivalry. As Russia began spreading communism throughout Eastern Europe and eastern Asia, America intervened to stop the spreading of “bad ideas.” As Americans witnessed the horrors of the war, they knew that the cause couldn’t justify the war. But as the American government wanted to continue the war to fight the Russians, Americans created a counter culture of hippies and protested the government’s decisions. The Indian Independence movement is considered one of the first peaceful transfer of power to an independent state. Since the colonial age of the 1500s and 1600s, India has been under the colonial rule of Great Britain. Gandhi led successful peaceful protests to make Britain free India. The Civil Rights Movements in the 1960s is another example of peaceful protests that forced the government to change their decisions. The leader of the protests: Martin Luther King Jr., was highly influenced by the works of Mahatma Gandhi.

            When America entered Vietnam, Americans were patriotic and proud. They were under the belief that they were stopping the evils of communism to instill democracy. That was not what they experienced. The people of Vietnam didn’t care whether they became communists or democrats. Americans realized they were sending good men to die for no good reason. “And by the time U.S. planes began regular bombings of North Vietnam in February 1965, some critics had begun to question the government’s assertion that it was fighting a democratic war to liberate the South Vietnamese people from Communist aggression.”(History.com) Most people still supported the war but a small minority of people that were mostly made of college students began a small flame resisting the war. “This minority included many students as well as prominent artists and intellectuals and members of the hippie movement, a growing number of young people who rejected authority and embraced the drug culture.” (History.com) But as the tides of war changed, many people began opposing the war and drafts. The U.S. government told the American Public that the war was going well. When the North Vietnamese launched the Tet Offensive and effectively knocked out American military bases for a short time. After this military move, the American public lost trust in the U.S. government. “The launch of the Tet Offensive by North Vietnamese communist troops in January 1968, and its success against U.S. and South Vietnamese troops, sent waves of shock and discontent across the home front and sparked the most intense period of anti-war protests to date. By early February 1968, a Gallup poll showed only 35 percent of the population approved of Johnson’s handling of the war and a full 50 percent disapproved (the rest had no opinion). Joining the anti-war demonstrations by this time were members of the organization Vietnam Veterans Against the War, many of whom were in wheelchairs and on crutches.” (History.com)

            British control of the South Asian Subcontinent began as a trading venture in the early seventeenth century with the English East India Company. Following an uprising in 1857 India came under direct administration by the British Empire. The British colonial government relied on the cooperation of Indian elites and soldiers for formal control of government and the population. “Mohandas Gandhi’s civil disobedience movement of 1930-1931—launched by the Salt March—is a critical case for understanding civil resistance. Although by itself it failed to bring Indian independence, it seriously undermined British authority and united India’s population in a movement for independence under the leadership of the Indian National Congress (INC).” (nonviolent-conflict.org) Gandhi believed in peace. He knew that fighting fire with fire would no resolve anything because using violence to fight injustices from Britain would not solve anything. “On the anniversary of the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar—in which hundreds of unarmed Indians were killed and many more wounded by British soldiers—Gandhi reached down and scooped up a handful of mud at a beach and declared that he was shaking the foundations of the British Empire. He then boiled the mud in seawater to produce illegal salt, an act repeated by thousands which led to the arrest of an estimated 60,000-100,000 men and women who participated for the first time in mass public demonstrations.” (nonviolent-conflict.org) In August 1947, the Indian Independence Act was signed. This separated the Muslim majority areas from India to create the independent state of Pakistan. This new state was split in two, the two parts being 1000 miles apart. The act was not easy to put into action. Gandhi’s actions were brave. He introduced the idea that violent revolutions were not necessary to gain what they want. “His three major campaigns in 1920–22, 1930–34, and 1940–42 were well designed to engender that process of self-doubt and questioning that was to undermine the moral defenses of his adversaries and to contribute, together with the objective realities of the postwar world, to producing the grant of dominion status in 1947. The British abdication in India was the first step in the liquidation of the British Empire on the continents of Asia and Africa. Gandhi’s image as an archrebel died hard, but, as it had done to the memory of George Washington, Britain, in 1969, the centenary year of Gandhi’s birth, erected a statue to his memory.” (Britannica)

            From America’s beginning, America was always segregated. African- Americans were brought from West Africa in the early 1600s. They were forced as slaves until the late 1800s ahen the Civil War ended and effectively freed slaves. But even though the slaves were free, they were always “separate but equal.” In the early 1960s, segregation hit its tipping point. African- Americans had to drink at their own water fountain, they had separate eating spots, and couldn’t receive the same education as white people. Many people see Martin Luther King Jr. as the head of the civil rights movement. As a child he experienced heavy segregation. “By the time of the Little Rock incident, the nation had already become aware of the heightened struggle in the South. In 1955 blacks in Montgomery, Ala., organized a boycott of city buses in protest of the policy of segregated seating. Instigated by Rosa Parks, the boycott lasted 381 days; it succeeded in integrating the seating. It also led to the formation in 1957 of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), in Atlanta, Ga. This was presided over by a local black minister, Martin Luther King, Jr. As SCLC head, King would later become a central leader in the larger civil rights movement.” (scholastic.com)

Works Cited

1. "Civil Disobedience." Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2015.

2. "Vietnam Protest Movement." Spartacus Educational. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2015.

3. History.com Staff. "Vietnam War Protests." History.com. A&E Television Networks, 2010. Web. 20 Jan. 2015.

4. Kurtz, Lester. "The Indian Independence Struggle (1930-1931)."Movements and Campaigns. N.p., June 2009. Web. 20 Jan. 2015.

5. "India 1900 to 1947". HistoryLearningSite.co.uk. 2014. Web.

6. Davis, Jack E. "Civil Rights Movement." Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. Grolier Online, 2014. Web. 20 Jan. 2015.

7. History.com Staff. "Civil Rights Movement." History.com. A&E Television Networks, 2009. Web. 20 Jan. 2015.

8. "Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2015. Web. 20 Jan. 2015