Henry Thoreau’s Influence on Martin Luther King Jr.

Henry Thoreau’s Influence on Martin Luther King Jr.

Henry David Thoreau was a great American writer, philosopher, and naturalist of the 1800’s who’s writings have influenced many famous leaders in the 20th century, as well as in his own lifetime. Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts in 1817, where he was later educated at Harvard University. Thoreau was a transcendentalist writer, which means that he believed that intuition and the individual conscience “transcend” experience and are better guides to truth than are the senses and logical reason (Prentice Hall 1174). Thoreau is well known for writing Walden Pond, Excursions, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod, and A Yankee in Canada. In 1849 Henry David Thoreau wrote an essay called Civil Disobedience which little did he know would influence great leaders such as Mohandas Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and US civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1929. He graduated college with honors and developed a talent for public speaking. A man by the name of Edgar D. Nixon saw King’s public-speaking gifts as great assets in the battle for black civil rights in Montgomery, where the bus system was about to be boycotted on account of Rosa Park’s incarceration. King slowly became a well-known civil rights leader that gave many speeches and non-violent protests. This is about the time that King studied the writings of Henry David Thoreau, especially Civil Disobedience. Throughout the history of the United States, there have been many times when citizens have felt the need to revolt against the government. Times of revolt where when Henry Thoreau was alive and during the civil rights movement of the 1950’s. The reasons for ...

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...st laws performed by the government. King actually adopted Thoreau’s teachings and ideas of direct action and used them in leading the movement to end racial segregation in the United States.

Henry David Thoreau was a brilliant transcendentalist writer, who not only influenced people of his time, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, but many great leaders in the past century. Civil Disobedience paved away for non-violent protests that were more effective in changing unjust laws. Martin Luther King Jr. followed many of Thoreau’s teachings and which made segregation no longer a problem in America. Two other great leaders that Thoreau influenced were Mohandas Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela. Thoreau inspired reforms and the overturning of unjust laws and customs. If it weren’t for Henry David Thoreau and Civil Disobedience, many unjust laws might have been still in effect today.