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Essay on The Philosophy of Nonviolent Protest
Thoreau, Henry David, is considered one of the most influential figures in American thought and literature. A supreme individualist, he championed the human spirit against materialism and social conformity. His most famous book, Walden (1854), is an eloquent account of his experiment in near-solitary living in close harmony with nature; it is also an expression of his transcendentalist philosophy.
The son of the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Martin Luther King became (1954) minister of the Dexter Ave. Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala. He led the black boycott (1955–56) of segregated city bus lines and in 1956 gained a major victory and prestige as a civil-rights leader when Montgomery buses began to operate on a desegregated basis.
Educated in India and in London, Gandhi was admitted to the English bar in 1889 and practiced law unsuccessfully in India for two years. In 1893 he went to South Africa. There he became a “successful lawyer and leader of the Indian community and involved himself in the fight to end discrimination against the country's Indian minority” (Gandhi, 1982).
While in South Africa he organized his first campaign of civil disobedience expressed in nonviolent resistance to what he regarded as unjust laws. He returned (1915) to India with a stature equal to that of nationalist leaders, his program included a free, united India; the revival of cottage industries, especially of spinning and the production of hand-woven cloth and the abolition of untouchability.
Chavez, Cesar Estrada, A migrant worker, he became involved in the self-help Community Service Organization (CSO) in California, working among Mexicans and Mexican Americans; from 1958 to 1962 he was its general director. In 1962, he left the CSO to organize wine grape pickers in California and formed the National Farm Workers Association. Using strikes, fasts, picketing, and marches, he was able to obtain contracts from a number of major growers................
