The Uses of Nonviolent Resistance Theme Analysis

Martin Luther King Jr. was a civil rights activist noted for his embrace of nonviolent resistance, or the practice of achieving social change through peaceful demonstrations. During the summer of 1963, a “sweltering” season simmering with rage and volatility, King’s assertion that nonviolent resistance was the surest path to change came at a crucial moment in the long fight for civil rights. In his “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered at the March on Washington (one of the largest human rights rallies in America’s history), King extolled the potential of nonviolent action as a path to change, arguing that if the civil rights movement was to be a success, it needed to resist the temptation to meet violence with more violence.

King urged his listeners at the March on Washington to swear off violence and free themselves of violent impulses. “We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence,” King warned his listeners. “Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.” By claiming physical violence was the “degenerate[ed]” form of protest, King underscored the importance of taking the high road and ignoring the impulse to descend into chaos or cruelty. The concept of “creative protest,” or new and innovative ways of standing up collectively against injustice, was, according to King, the purest form of resistance because it was connected to the soul and the heart rather than the body. Physical violence, in King’s estimation, was common, unimaginative, and lowly. But coming up with other methods to protest—methods that would appeal not to fear or coercion but to growth and openness—would propel their cause. “Unearned suffering is redemptive,” King told his listeners at the march. By encouraging listeners to embrace their unearned suffering, King was reframing suffering as a positive experience, rather than one that should provoke a violent response. Many of the “veterans of creative suffering” he spoke to at the march had been faced with violence and survived—and now, King urged them not to emulate the violent tactics of those who hurt them, but rather to model more righteous and just behavior.

Though King denounced violence, he recognized and validated his listeners’ rage and encouraged them to channel that rage into meaningful nonviolent action. King urged his listeners to work tirelessly for the rights of Black Americans and to stir up “the whirlwinds of revolt” in order to “shake the foundations of [the] nation.” He didn’t want his vision of nonviolent resistance to turn the civil rights movement into one of complacency or languor—he wanted to remind his fellow Americans that they could be angry and noncompliant without resorting to “wrongful deeds.” Kung acknowledged the “thirst for freedom” among those at the march—but he warned them not to try to satisfy that thirst “by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.” He didn’t want them to turn to violence or cruelty—he wanted their rage to inspire them rather than keep them bogged down in animosity. Additionally, King praised the “marvelous new militancy” of the Black community and the civil rights movement. But he wasn’t approving of “militancy” in the sense of armed violence—instead, he hoped that the civil rights movement would be “militant” by remaining organized and united in the face of oppression. He wanted his listeners to remain thoroughly  devoted to change without growing frustrated and resorting to ugly violence when that change didn’t come immediately.

Throughout his speech, King implied again and again that it was nonviolent action and the dream of peace—not unchecked militancy or violence—that would allow freedom to ring out at last across America. King wanted to transform “the jangling discords of [his] nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.” He wanted to smooth the “rough places” in America and straighten the “crooked places.” He wanted descendants of slaves and descendants of slave-owners to “sit down together at the table of brotherhood.” King’s vision for a new America was not one that would be won through violence, coercion, or viciousness. True freedom, King asserted, could not be achieved by replicating the violent power structures that kept racism and segregation alive. In order to bring real change to America, King and his supporters would have to find a new way forward—one that radically rejected violent action as well as violent thoughts.