Talk by AnneMarie Mingo

Assistant Professor of African American Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Undergraduate Director, African American Studies

In response to an open letter from eight white religious leaders in 1963 chastising his involvement in Birmingham, Martin Luther King, Jr. explained that civil rights activists’ blatant breaking of some laws while obeying others was the result of two types of laws: just laws and unjust laws. Civil rights activists believed that there was a legal responsibility to obey just laws and a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. Today, many new civil rights struggles continue to directly challenge unjust laws that shred the fabric of democracy that America espouses. In this talk, Mingo will argue that the breaking of unjust laws and practices must take place before the making of a just society is possible, and identifies four ethical strategies for social activism with applications for struggles for justice today.