In his Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote:

One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

I can’t help think of this as applicable to all forms of civil disobedience. It certainly comes to mind when the anniversary comes around for a particular notable who chose to kill himself rather than suffer the consequences of his civil disobedience.

My conundrum is this:

Don’t we owe it to future potential leaders to examine what happened, and highlight the episode as a cautionary tale? Before one chooses to be civilly disobedient, shouldn’t one should know what civil disobedience really means in terms of the tradeoffs? Not everyone can accept the consequences, and the stakes are too high to engage to willfully break the law with disregard for the consequences. [In candor, I know I can’t, but I also know nobody would rally around me if I did.]

Doesn’t everyone know that asserting a moral right to perform an illegal action isn’t a universal “aw shucks, get out of here cowboy” card? It’s an easily discoverable fact that many folks who were civilly disobedient ended up in jail for it–they expected it. Part of the reason why we admire and revere those people is for their courage to accept the penalty for the awareness it brings to the unjust law. We stand in awe of their conviction to challenge that system and endure incarceration, and in so doing dare all of us to shake off our complacency and push for real change instead of looking away.

Effective change can be wrought through other means than civil disobedience, if your plan for yourself relies on lack of criminal convictions. Depending on the individual, these other methods can be equally powerful. Knowing what destination you can accept should guide whether you should embark on the journey, and I can’t help question when it appears someone’s courage failed them when the reasonably anticipatable bill came due.