Course
Date
The Ethics of Business
Jim Crow laws were enacted in the late 19th century and enforced racial apartheid. Under these laws, whites and colored people were forbidden from sharing public facilities. Each set of groups had its own institutions and facilities for instance schools and parks. However, blacks were forcefully being oppressed as their interests were often overlooked through ways such as underfunding of their schools. Years later, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was motivated to bring the apartheid laws to an end (Jackson 87). As a fighter for human rights, King exercised a lot of effort in ending this social discrimination. He did this through mobilizing people to forcefully abolish the law.
Dr. King's Activism
Dr. King believed in equality among all races. He delivered that message to the people through peaceful civic activism and his powerful speeches. In 1963, he initiated a campaign in Birmingham, Alabama to protest against racial discrimination. This campaign was aggressive and it involved boycotting of businesses that segregated their facilities, marches, and other tactics. He considered this as direct action hoping that it will eventually open doors to negotiations (Jackson 90). However, in response to the campaign, many people were arrested including King. He believed that direct actions that involved disobedience of the Jim Crow laws were conscionable in order to achieve true civic rights.
Success of King's Disobedience
King's disobedience was successful and led to the abolishing of many inequality laws. This rationale should apply especially in laws of social discrimination under cases where efforts for negotiations have failed. King's tactics were nonviolent involving civic resistance and therefore the welfare of the people involved was ensured (Jackson 90). Additionally, lawmakers should take into consideration civic equality, whereby no group of people is considered superior to the other so that the law is not unjust to some.
Work Cited
Jackson, T. F. From Civil Rights to Human Rights: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Struggle for Economic Justice. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.
