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Thoreau Challenges Justice with His Essay "Civil Disobedience"

Season 1 Episode 2 | 7m 14s

After refusing to pay four years of poll taxes, Thoreau is briefly imprisoned. Thoreau is adamantly opposed to supporting a state that is involved in enslavement and wars of aggression. Thoreau begins to write in earnest about society's obligations to freedom and justice culminating in the essay "Civil Disobedience," which influences the later work of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Gandhi

Episodes presented in 4K UHD on supported devices. Major funding for HENRY DAVID THOREAU was provided by The Better Angels Society and its members: The Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment and Mark A. Tracy. Major funding was also provided by Jeff Skoll, the Mansueto Foundation, Tyson Foods, Inc., and The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations. Additional funding was provided by the Tyson Family Foundation Inc, The Neil and Anna Rasmussen Foundation, Roxanne Quimby Foundation Inc, Jim and Mona Mylen through The HeartSpace Fund, and Elizabeth Kenny.
Extras
Thoreau participates in the Underground Railroad and gives a speech on what it means to be free.
Henry David Thoreau dies at 44, but his message lives on and encourages us to read.
On an excursion, a Penobscot leader teaches Thoreau about the Penobscot culture and language.
Thoreau is introduced to Ralph Waldo Emerson and the radical ideas of transcendentalism.
While slavery is illegal in Massachusetts, Black communities are forced to the margins of society.
Thoreau moves in with Ralph Waldo Emerson's family, but personal tragedy strikes both families.
Leaving Walden Pond, Thoreau joins his cousin on an excursion to Mount Katahdin in Maine.
Henry David Thoreau spent his life experimenting and contemplating on how to live a good life.
On July 4th, 1845, Henry David Thoreau moves into a 10x15-foot house on Walden Pond.
Filmmakers Erik Ewers and Christopher Loren Ewers discuss the making of 'Henry David Thoreau'.
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