MLK on “Civil Disobedience” “A very few—as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men—serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it,” Henry Thoreau claimed in his essay, “Civil Disobedience.” Martin Luther King Jr. indisputably served the people of the state by his own conscience and was definitely treated as an enemy. “We want to be free!” King cried out during his “I've Been to the Mountaintop” speech. It didn't matter that it was seen as an evil act against the men in charge to him. “Civil disobedience” immensely impacted Martin Luther King and supported his views and drive that lead to the Civil Rights Movement. While slaves had been emancipated by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, people of color were no where near treated equal, even in the year 1950, and MLK saw this and decided to take a stand. He did this by himself because he, along with many other civilians, wanted to see change. “Can there not be a government in which the majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience?” Henry Thoreau implores in his world renowned work entitled “Civil Disobedience.” MLK did not let the majority decide when stood out on his own to truly make a change in the world around him. Going back to the slaves being released from slavery, Thoreau made the point that , “When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery, or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished by their vote.” In the years previous to the nationwide abolition of slavery, many states and territories already had. Therefore, the majority vote ruled out a fraction of the amount of slavery that there was, say ten years before. Henry Thoreau’s essay influenced MLK immensely. Before Kings untimely death, said, “Fascinated by the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system, I was so deeply moved that I reread the work [Civil Disobedience] several times.” This essay really changed his life and paved that way to change led by MLK.  “If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it
