Martin Luther King, Jr. defines “civil disobedience” as a way to show others what to do when a law is unjust and unreasonable. As King states in the letter from Birmingham, “Every law which elevates the human personality is right. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust." When blacks were being treated unfairly, Martin Luther King, Jr. stepped in to show people how to protest peacefully and not be violent. The dictionary definition of civil disobedience is the refusal to obey certain laws or to pay taxes and fines, as a peaceful form of political protest (Webster's Dictionary). This is what Martin Luther King, Jr. did when nothing was changing in the city after the law banning segregation in public schools. In Antigone, Creon issued an edict that no one could bury Polyneices' body because he was a traitor to Thebes and his family. According to Martin Luther King's definition of just and unjust law, Creon's edict is unjust and degrades Polyneices' right to be buried due to lack of information and a brother's favoritism. In the play, Antigone, Antigone's brothers, Eteocles and Polyneices, killed each other on the throne of Thebes. Eteocles ascended to the rightful throne as king after his father fled in shame because he had killed his father and married his mother. As soon as Eteocles took the throne, he banished his brother Polyneices, so that he would not have to share the throne. Polyneices went to raise an army with the Argus kings and the mad Thebans. During the battle, Polyneices and Eteocles fight to the death and both die. Polyneices must rot to death and be eaten by dogs and wild animals, while Eteocles gets proper burial because he was the rightful king. In the... middle of Martin Luther King Jr.'s paper... after her son's death, she goes and slits her own throat. Creon then feels the direct action of Antigone when he is all alone at the end of the play. His edict caused so much pain and suffering to his family that they all committed suicide. In Antigone, Antigone follows Martin Luther King Jr.'s steps for a nonviolent campaign and becomes violent and deadly. Antigone successfully goes through each phase of the nonviolent campaign by proving that Creon's edict was unjust and illegal. In the end Creon truly discovers how senseless his edict was, when he was left alone as king of Thebes without a wife, son or daughter-in-law. Works Cited Antigone. New York: Dover Publications, 1993. Print.King, Dr. Martin Luther, Jr. “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” Letter to priests. April 16, 1963. American identities. Np: Wiley-Blackwell, 2005. N. pag. Press