nonviolent resistance

Refusal to obey a law considered unjust; civil disobedience.

Note: Mahatma Gandhi urged and practiced nonviolent resistance during the efforts to win independence for India from Britain in the early twentieth century.

Note: African-Americans in the civil rights movement often practiced nonviolent resistance in the South in the 1960s — for example, by sitting-in at segregated lunch counters to provoke arrest and draw attention to their cause. (See segregation and sit-ins.)