The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."
Also:
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."
It was illegal to have an education. To look or stare at a white person. To eat at whites only restaurant. To be married and have a family. To roam the streets without freedom papers.
Not only was it illegal but they considered it to be a mental illness for a slave to runaway.
“Drapetomania (runaway slave syndrome) was a conjectural mental illness that, in 1851, American physician Samuel A. Cartwright hypothesized as the cause of enslaved Africans fleeing captivity”
“If treated kindly, well fed and clothed, with fuel enough to keep a small fire burning all night — separated into families, each family having its own house — not permitted to run about at night to visit their neighbors, to receive visits or use intoxicating liquors, and not overworked or exposed too much to the weather, they are very easily governed — more so than any other people in the world. If any one or more of them, at any time, are inclined to raise their heads to a level with their master or overseer, humanity and their own good requires that they should be punished until they fall into that submissive state which was intended for them to occupy. They have only to be kept in that state, and treated like children to prevent and cure them from running away.”
“As a remedy for this "disease", doctors made running a physical impossibility by prescribing the removal of both big toes”
“the case of slaves "sulky and dissatisfied without cause"–a warning sign of imminent flight–Cartwright prescribed "whipping the devil out of them" as a "preventative measure".
KageStar on June 4th, 2020 at 19:07 UTC »
Some relevant MLK Jr quotes:
Also:
Camoflauge_Soulja on June 4th, 2020 at 19:11 UTC »
It was illegal to have an education. To look or stare at a white person. To eat at whites only restaurant. To be married and have a family. To roam the streets without freedom papers.
It was illegal to be alive.
EthiopianNutella on June 4th, 2020 at 19:16 UTC »
Not only was it illegal but they considered it to be a mental illness for a slave to runaway.
“Drapetomania (runaway slave syndrome) was a conjectural mental illness that, in 1851, American physician Samuel A. Cartwright hypothesized as the cause of enslaved Africans fleeing captivity”
“If treated kindly, well fed and clothed, with fuel enough to keep a small fire burning all night — separated into families, each family having its own house — not permitted to run about at night to visit their neighbors, to receive visits or use intoxicating liquors, and not overworked or exposed too much to the weather, they are very easily governed — more so than any other people in the world. If any one or more of them, at any time, are inclined to raise their heads to a level with their master or overseer, humanity and their own good requires that they should be punished until they fall into that submissive state which was intended for them to occupy. They have only to be kept in that state, and treated like children to prevent and cure them from running away.”
“As a remedy for this "disease", doctors made running a physical impossibility by prescribing the removal of both big toes”
“the case of slaves "sulky and dissatisfied without cause"–a warning sign of imminent flight–Cartwright prescribed "whipping the devil out of them" as a "preventative measure".