Excerpt from "On Civil Disobedience"

Governments can seem like unbeatable bullies. But Mohandas K. Gandhi, originally trained as a lawyer, found a way to fight back in both South Africa and India. This list, based on a July 27, 1916 speech, delivers some of the words he lived and died by.

Here are all the word lists to support the reading of Grade 10 Unit 2's texts from SpringBoard's Common Core ELA series: Where I'm From, Funny in Farsi, Kaffir Boy, Pick One, If You Are What You Eat, Persepolis, poems about parents, Hunger of Memory, Thanksgiving: A Personal History, Time to Assert American Values, Rough Justice, On Civil Disobedience, On Surrender at Bear Paw Mountain, On Women's Right to Vote, Declaration of the Rights of the Child, School's Out for Summer, One Word of Truth, Hope, Despair, and Memory
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. counter
    indicating opposition or resistance
    There are two ways of countering injustice.
  2. perpetrate
    perform an act, usually with a negative connotation
    One way is to smash the head of the man who perpetrates injustice and to get your own head smashed in the process.
  3. decline
    a condition inferior to an earlier condition
    The consequence is not the progress of a nation but its decline...
  4. belligerent
    someone who fights or is fighting
    And if, perchance, either our act or our purpose was ill-conceived, it brings disaster to both belligerents.
  5. consequence
    the outcome of an event
    But through the other method of combating injustice, we alone suffer the consequences of our mistakes, and the other side is wholly spared.
  6. Satyagraha
    the form of nonviolent resistance initiated in India by Mahatma Gandhi in order to oppose British rule and to hasten political reforms
    This other method is satyagraha.
  7. resort
    have recourse to
    One who resorts to it does not have to break another's head; he may merely have his own head broken.
  8. atrocious
    shockingly brutal or cruel
    In opposing the atrocious laws of the Government of South Africa, it was this method that we adopted.
  9. outrageous
    grossly offensive to decency or morality; causing horror
    We made it clear to the said Government that we would never bow to its outrageous laws.
  10. entity
    that which is perceived to have its own distinct existence
    no State is possible without two entities, the rulers and the ruled
  11. sovereign
    a nation's ruler usually by hereditary right
    You are our sovereign, our Government, only so long as we consider ourselves your subjects.
  12. endeavor
    earnest and conscientious activity intended to do something
    So long as it is your endeavour to control us with justice and love, we will let you to do so.
  13. statute
    an act passed by a legislative body
    If you make laws to keep us suppressed in a wrongful manner and without taking us into confidence, these laws will merely adorn the statute books.
  14. scaffold
    a platform from which criminals are executed
    Ask us to mount the scaffold and we will do so laughing.
  15. arbitrary
    based on or subject to individual discretion or preference
    But so long as there is yet life in these our bones, we will never comply with your arbitrary laws.
Created on Mon Oct 13 10:19:17 EDT 2014 (updated Mon Oct 13 15:06:09 EDT 2014)

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