Civil Disobedience: The Montgomery Bus Boycott

Civil disobedience comes in many forms, varying from boycotts to school walkouts. One of the most well known forms of civil disobedience in American history is the Montgomery Bus Boycott, taking place in a segregated Alabama. Rosa Parks, amongst dozens of other outspoken African Americans, led a movement in Montgomery which had tens of thousands of African Americans stop riding the bus. This event led to the creation of the MIA, or the Montgomery Improvement Association. This hurt the bussing companies but not the African Americans, which created carpools and taxis to get around. Finally, a little over a year later, segregated seating became unconstitutional, and thus banned in the United States. A lesser known form of civil disobedience is a small Ohio company by the name of

Thoreau has very progressive ideas, valuing equality, individual beliefs, and the abolition of slavery. Thoreau was not only against slavery, but he was against people being a slave to anything. In the book The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail, Thoreau says that “...there’s slavery in the north, too. Every man shackled to a ten-hour-a-day job is a work-slave. Every man who has to worry about next month’s rent is a money-slave”(Lee 90). Yet more than slavery, Thoreau was against all forms of oppression or being forced to do something that he did not believe in. On July 23rd 1846, Thoreau was arrested for not paying taxes because the money would fund the Mexican-American war, which he was against. Henry David Thoreau also quit his dream job of teaching because the school demanded him to flog the students, which he refused to do. It can be easily observed that Henry David Thoreau would support both of these organizations despite all success, size, leadership, etc. This support from Thoreau is because of his passion for corporations trying to change their town and nation for the