Top 10 Nonviolent Protests

Seminal Essay
Henry David Thoreau, the Harvard-educated 19th-century philosopher and poet, remains a major symbol of peaceful resistance because of his 1849 work, "Civil Disobedience," in which he questions why people would obey a government whose laws they believe to be unjust. On account of his opposition to slavery, Thoreau refused to pay taxes, an act that briefly landed him in jail in 1846 (a relative bailed him out).

• John and Yoko's Bed-In