King Still King?

     Martin Luther King Jr. was an African American Civil Rights Activist during the early and mid 20th century that protested for the end of segregation and racial discrimination against African Americans. Throughout his protests, he specificly told and trained his fellow protestors to not use violence as a way to accomplish their goals. His way of not using violence in his protests made him well respected by later Americans in the U.S which was why the holiday on January 17 was dedicated to him. Although he had already died a long time ago, his values of protesting against unjust laws and injustice in society passed on to the present generation of Americans who followed in his footsteps and protested against another subject.

     One of the recent protests on the issue of global warming that took place in 2009 was an example of civil disobeidence where people surrounded the U.S Capitol which was a building that's responsible for the use of tremendous amount of coal each year;thus contributing to global warming. Base on people's opinion on that day, it was the largest civil disobedience on Global Warming in U.S history which putted alot of pressure on the U.S government to try to start caring about this issue. Simiarily to King's ideas of revealing hidden tensions and increasing people's awareness of the current situation makes it easier for these idealistic improvements to become a reality. As it's stated by the Biel, "We refuse to tell our children and grandchildren that we had the solutions, but lacked the courage," and "We're in a fight for our children's lives, and we can't afford to play by the rules," it demonstrates the point of how if something is unjust in society, people wouldn't have can choose to break its rules and express their opinions openly on the subject which would benefit the future generations. King's ideas are deeply imbedded in types of protests like these and without them, society wouldn't be showing any major signs of improvement throughtout time.