Civil Disobedience

These are quotes I found from an interview with Martin Luther King Jr.

MlK was also asked if it was wrong to break the law?

"We must never forget that everything that Hitler did in Germany was "legal." It was illegal to aid and comfort a Jew, in the days of Hitler's Germany. But I believe that if I had the same attitude then as I have now I would publicly aid my Jewish brothers in Germany....Our nation in a sense came into being through a massive act of civil disobedience for the Boston Tea Party was nothing but a massive civil disobedience. Those who stood up against the slave laws, the abolitionists, by

and large practiced civil disobedience. So I think these students are in good company, ... they are in line with men and women through the ages who have stood up for something that is morally right."

When is civil disobedience necessary?

“There is nothing wrong with a traffic law that says you have to stop for a red light but when a fire is raging the fire truck goes through that red light and normal traffic better get out of its way. Or when a man is bleeding to death the ambulance goes through those red lights at top speed. There is a fire raging for the poor of this society, disinherited people all over the world are bleeding to death from deep social and economic wounds and they need brigades of ambulance drivers who will have to ignore the red lights of the present system until the emergency is solved.”