On Civil Disobedience

Here’s a question you may well know the answer to: What connects Henry David Thoreau, Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr?

If you don’t know, the answer is Thoreau’s Resistance to Civil Government which was published on this day in 1849. Probably best known as On Civil Disobedience. Gandhi read it under the later title and incorporated that term “civil disobedience” into his own amazing work. King was, of course, inspired by both men, and very much by that little essay.

A revisit to this guide from and to our better angels might be a good thing…