Why Polite, Peaceful Protest Doesn’t Work
Stop criticizing and start listening.
In 1773, a group of colonists in Boston threw 342 chests of tea into the Boston Harbor. This clandestine act was a protest of the British parliament’s decision to lower taxes for the East India Company.
The very low tax rate gave the company a monopoly on the booming tea trade in the colony that would become America. That night, they destroyed $18,000 worth of tea, which is worth about $1 million in today’s currency.
The British noticed.
They passed the Coercive Acts (aka the Intolerable Acts) which did the following:
- closed Boston to all merchant shipping
- established military rule in Massachusetts
- declared British officials unable to be prosecuted in American courts
Effectively, the British cut off how Boston colonists made money, squashed colonists’ rights by imposing military force, and made themselves above the law.
Sound familiar?
As a result, colonists organized meetings to establish an American resistance to the British which eventually led to the War for Independence.
We teach this story to our kids in whitewashed history books as a symbol of American…
