Homework Help: english

Posted by phil on Tuesday, February 3, 2009 at 6:59pm.

Hi can someone pelase help me explain this quote by Martin Luther King. In addition I also I need to know what the words "personal witness" in the quote mean.
Thank you for all your help.

"I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest."

english - Ms. Sue, Tuesday, February 3, 2009 at 7:07pm
Dr. King says that we have a moral responsibility to not cooperate with evil. That's why he and other Civil Rights workers confronted the evils of segregation, but used passive resistance to defeat it.

Personal witness means living your life in a moral fashion and verbally spreading the word about your beliefs.

See this site about why Thoreau went to jail. This is an excellent example of personal witness.

http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1975/5/1975_5_36.shtml
english - phil, Tuesday, February 3, 2009 at 7:30pm
thank you. I read the night thoreau went to jail but I am still a little iffy on the whole personal witness thing
english - Ms. Sue, Tuesday, February 3, 2009 at 7:39pm
Think about Thoreau's life. He believed in living a simple life in tune with nature. So he left his comfortable home and friends and built a little cabin in the woods so that he could experience nature. Of course, he communicated these thoughts and explorations with others with his book Walden. He was a personal witness to his beliefs that man should live a simple life and observe nature.

He wrote "Civil Disobedience" in which he extolled the responsibilities of breaking the law if the law is wrong.

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