How Does Non-Violence Work?

Throughout history, there have been civilizations that have ruled with tyranny and inequality. A great number of people have tried to rebel and have not succeeded. Most of them did not succeed because they were rebelling with violence. As stated by Colman Mccarthy, “Wars aren’t stopped by fighting wars, any more than you can fight fire with fire. You fight fire with water. You fight violence with nonviolence.” Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King Jr all used nonviolence as a way to stop the injustice of their government. First I’ll be talking about each person’s history, then about their similarities, and finally going over their methods of using nonviolence.

India, South Africa, and the United States are three different nations that have faced violence and have used non-violence to stop it. The United States and South Africa were suffering from racial segregation, while India was suffering from colonialism. Gandhi grew up in a family where his parent taught him equality and justice. When he grew up, he went to UCL Faculty of Laws to study law which is located in London. In England, he thought that the country was fair and flawless. But he was proven wrong when he went to South Africa and kicked off a train for not being white. He fought back and was sent to jail. When he went back to India, he was recognized as a leader and created a kind of community where they would fight back. Speaking of South Africa, that’s where Nelson Mandela was born. Mandela’s dad a tribal chief and was dethroned when disrespecting an English judge. He attended and graduated a law school which was rare at that time. When he came back, he joined the African National Congress or ANC. He was later arrested by the government for being the ‘leader’ of the ANC and thrown to jail for life. He got out of jail twenty-six and a half years later and found new ways to fight the injustice without cruelty. Martin Luther King Junior’s dad was a preacher in church and when MLK grew up, he went to Boston University. He was sent to jail for going 5 mph over the speed limit. He joined SCLC later and starter doing peaceful protests.

As proven in the last paragraph, Martin Luther King, Mohandas Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela all have things in common. They all had influential parents who taught them equality and justice for starters. They also went to law schools and colleges. Gandhi went to UCL Faculty of Laws, MLK went to Boston University, Nelson Mandela went to the University of London to study Law. Finally, these three enormous influential people in the history of protesting in rebelling all had to sacrifice something. MLK sacrificed his life just like Gandhi, and Mandela spent almost one-third of his life in prison. These characteristics and influences from the beginning of their lives had made them into natural born leaders.

Now you might ask how their peaceful protests worked. Madela used a lot of known nonviolence protests. One of the known ones is the Birmingham Campaign, 1963. The Birmingham Campaign was made by MLK while he was in the SCLC. Most of the jobs only hired white people and he made peaceful protests by making the police arrest the protesters and jail cells where overfilled. All the people were freed after proven to have nothing to do with violence. Gandhi did the same things as Martin Luther King, peaceful march. One of his marches stretched over 200 miles to the sea that led to campaigns that had over 100,000 arrests. Nelson Mandela did the same thing as MLK and did peaceful marches but ended up getting thrown at the prison.

In conclusion, these three men have changed the course of protesting, by being leaders, being patient in the face of nonviolence, and having the right cause to fight against the violence. As I said in the beginning, “Wars aren’t stopped by fighting wars, any more than you can fight fire with fire. You fight fire with water. You fight violence with nonviolence.”