In essence he explains what he is acting against.
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It is known that civil disobedience is acting out against government. King explains thoroughly that there must be good reason to act out. Therefore, there must be something that the government has laws against that are biased toward a group of people. He defines two different types of laws, just and unjust. He states thatA law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law.? This means that if a person who cannot vote has a law passed that is unfair toward them, then the law is unjust and should be challenged. If a group of people were not able to vote for the law, then why should they obey it?.
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King defines the next steps needed to correctly perform civil disobedience. Before any real action is taken, there is a process that should be gone through. First is collection of facts. He states that it should be known exactly what is being acted out against. There should also be facts collected on the audience, in Dr. King's case the clergymen, in order to be able to use the correct form of rhetoric. With the right facts and information a better argument can be formulated for defending a stance on a bias law. .
The next step is negotiation. Prior to taking action, negotiation for the desired law to be changed is crucial. It explains the stance that is taken and provides a starting point for debate. In addition negotiating shows that an effort was made to peacefully solve the unjust law before any action was needed to be taken. .
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The third step is self purification. This is described as the willingness to accept all consequences that may be encountered. Also that the reasons for resisting are valid reasons and not just because a law is an inconvenience. This is a very important part of the process. It parallels with the first step and makes sure that moral values are self-evaluated.