NCJ Number
76737
Date Published
1977
Length
0 pages
Annotation
Geared for an adolescent audience, this film uses the example of raw sewage being dumped directly into a river to illustrate the available options citizens may use to protest a situation which they feel is wrong.
Abstract
Steps citizens may follow to express their distress about the situation, while remaining within the law, include writing a letter of protest to the authorities to demand action to rectify the problem, petitioning the court to issue an injunction against the sewage treatment plant to stop dumping the raw sewage, picketing city hall (but following all picketing laws), and holding a legal parade to the site of the pollution. Other actions are to collect signatures to initiate a voter referendum on the question and to resubmit the petition to the court after it has been denied on a technicality. The film depicts the actions of citizens who, frustrated by the long legal process, decide to commit civil disobedience. They plug up the pipe emitting the polluted material into the river and are arrested. Viewers are asked to consider if it is ever right to break the law. The observation of Dr. Martin Luther King is noted: that there are two kinds of laws -- just and unjust -- and that people have a moral obligation to break unjust laws. The kit includes the filmstrip and an audio cassette.