“Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is in prison.” (Henry David Thoreau, 1817-1862)
Mention the name Thoreau and you’re bound to hear a reference to his 1854 book, Walden, and its role in the earliest days of environmental awareness. However, the more radical aspects of his lifework have, in many cases, been whitewashed from his standard bio.
In 1849, Thoreau wrote On the Duty of Civil Disobedience in response to the war of conquest being waged by his country, the Mexican-American War. It was not his only form of anti-war protest.
“The war had barely begun, the summer of 1846, when…Thoreau, who lived in Concord, Massachusetts, refused to pay his poll tax, denouncing the Mexican War,” wrote historian Howard Zinn. “He was put in jail and spent one night there.”
Against Thoreau’s wishes (and behind his back), his friends paid the tax and secured his freedom. Legend has it that when fellow writer Ralph Waldo Emerson visited Thoreau in jail, he asked: “Henry, what are you doing in there?”
To which Thoreau replied: “Ralph, what are you doing out there?”
The essay that sprang from not only Thoreau’s opposition to the war but his vocal stance against slavery is arguably the most influential work of the era. “If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another,” Thoreau wrote, “then, I say, break the law.”
This basic but profound principle has inspired and influenced changemakers for generations. Mohandas K. Gandhi effectively utilized a version of civil disobedience in India’s struggle for independence against the British. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. channeled both Thoreau and Gandhi in his leadership of a non-violent civil rights movement.
“I became convinced that non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good,” said King. “No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest.”
Here’s to plenty more “non-cooperation with evil” and “creative protest” in 2023!
An inspiring call to creative resistance. Count me in!
Wow! Thank you! This is news to me & very inspiring! ("Mickeypedia" over Wikipedia any day)!