F Band English
Civil Disobedience
The stand against “Dunnes stores” really symbolizes the actions that you’re supposed to present when you believe in a certain purpose. I really admire these workers because I would take the same stand as they did if I was as passionate as they are. One example that I truly feel has a connection for taking a stand in what you believe in is how on February 1, 1960, four African American college students sat down at a lunch counter at Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina, and politely asked for service. Their request was refused. When asked to leave, they remained in their seats. Their passive resistance and peaceful sit-down demand helped ignite a youth-led movement to challenge racial inequality throughout the South. These four African American students chose to take a stand in what they believed in and they changed civil rights for African Americans for the rest of history. All of the workers for Dunne’s stores did what they believed were right and according to Emerson’s ideas, they performed the correct actions.
Women such as Mary Manning would have been completely supported by Thoreau because she was the first person to boycott handling the South African produce in a stored Called “Dunnes”. She was breaking the law/machine, and standing up for what is right. Breaking the law is not necessarily bad. The truth will be revealed. Although she had to suffer the consequences of going against the authorities by being suspended, this led to “ten of her co-workers [going] on strike in solidarity” Thoreau would have supported this because he believed that the most important thing one can do is follow their morals and stay true to who they are and what they believe in, so the fact that the employees are standing up to their authorities because they believed to have “unfair working conditions” is exactly what Thoreau would have wanted.
Although at first, some of the employees were striking in order to have better working conditions, “the issue of Apartheid became more and more important to them”. The problem and