The Civil Disobedience Movement was a political movement that began in the late 19th century and gained momentum in the early 20th century. It was a form of protest against unjust laws and oppressive governments, and involved peaceful demonstrations, boycotts, and other forms of non-violent resistance.
Civil disobedience is the active and professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders, or commands of a government. By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". Hence, civil disobedience is sometimes equated with peaceful protests or nonviolent resistance. Henry David Thoreau's essay Resistance to Civil Government, first published in 1849 and then published posthumously in 1866 as Civil Disobedience, popularized the term in the US, although the concept itself was practiced long before this work.