Thoreau’s essay endures primarily due to the accessibility, timelessness, and universality of his themes. drew inspiration from Thoreau’s work for their own nonviolent resistance to injustice and oppression. In the 20th century, notable activists such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Thoreau's individualism would be modified as his theories were applied by others to collective action.Thoreau’s “ Civil Disobedience ” has continued to resonate with readers around the world since its publication in 1849. However, these leaders, responding to more pressing circumstances and responding as members of subjugated classes of people sharply defined by the social markers of race and ethnicity placed more emphasis on community and the disruptive effects of mass action. Gandhi and, through him, Martin Luther King, Jr. Thoreau would later inspire historic protest leaders such as Mohandas K. His thoughts tapped into the vein of resistance that runs through American culture, but it also reflected his own strong individualism. Thoreau believed that individuals could be free only if their actions were true to their own beliefs, with or without the support or approval of the community, or of friends and family.

For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever. I know this well, that if one thousand, if one hundred, if ten men whom I could name if ten honest men only ay, if one HONEST man, in this State of Massachusetts, ceasing to hold slaves, were actually to withdraw from this co-partnership, and be locked up in the county jail therefor, it would be the abolition of slavery in America. Thoreau called for the use of what we now call 'passive resistance' to laws perceived to be unjust, and predicted that individual resistance to unjust laws could have a significant effect on government and its policies. 'Civil Disobedience' was inspired by Thoreau's arrest in 1846 for refusing for six years to pay a poll tax in protest of both slavery and the Mexican-American War. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.' '.I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government.

In 1849, Henry David Thoreau famously argued for the power of citizens to demand better government and policies in his essay 'Civil Disobedience' (originally titled 'Resistance to Civil Government'). Laying the Foundation of Civil Disobedience: Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau essay on civil disobedience