Question

You are doing a project on civil disobedience using this research question: "What were the origins of
the idea of using civil disobedience as a form of protest?" Which sources would be good choices for
this project? Select all that apply.
1. a personal letter containing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s reflections on using civil disobedience as a form of protest
2. a scholarly work on the social, political, and psychological causes of international terrorism
3. a popular book focused on the dietary habits of Indian independence-movement leader
Mohandas Gandhi
4. the famous nineteenth-century writer and activist Henry David Thoreau's essay "Civil
Disobedience"

Answer 1

Good choices: 1 and 4.

- 1 (MLK’s personal letter): Primary evidence of a major practitioner’s thinking about civil disobedience and its justification — directly relevant.
- 4 (Thoreau’s "Civil Disobedience"): A foundational primary text that helped shape later uses of civil disobedience.

Not good choices:
- 2 (scholarly work on terrorism): Different phenomenon and focus; not about the origins of civil disobedience.
- 3 (book on Gandhi’s dietary habits): Irrelevant topic for the origins of the idea.

(If you want more sources, consider Gandhi’s own writings on satyagraha/Hind Swaraj, early pamphlets/essays on passive resistance, and scholarly histories of nonviolent protest.)