“Civil disobedience” is a phrase coined by transcendentalist philosopher and writer Henry David Thoreau in an 1848 essay of the same name.

The famous opening line of that essay should be familiar to every conservative American by now: “I heartily accept the motto, ‘That government is best which governs least,’” Thoreau wrote.

In his treatise that follows, Thoreau goes on to explain why citizens should protest governmental overreach, particularly, in his case, the Mexican-American War and slavery. Thoreau advocated good citizens simply not obey unjust laws.

The concept would not have been unfamiliar to Americans who had staged the Boston Tea Party a little more than a century earlier, rebelling against British rule, “No taxation without representation!”

Thoreau’s work has become a celebrated piece of American philosophical literature and is well worth the read if you have not read it.

Not only did the essay play a part in the abolitionist movement of its era, it also has been a refrain in protest movements ever since, including protests against the Vietnam War.

It also was a guiding philosophy of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, in which many activists used protest marches as acts of civil disobedience in defiance of laws such as Jim Crow laws that suppressed voting rights for blacks and perpetuated two-Americas — one for blacks and one for whites, with segregated schools, restrooms and water fountains.

For many younger Americans today, imaging the America of the civil rights era is difficult and that is a testament to the hard-won battles and civil disobedience of such people as civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and multitudes of protesters of the era who fought against repressive unjust laws. Too many of those activists paid the ultimate price for the cause.

One major civil rights era battle occurred here in Natchez in 1965 in what is now known as “The Parchman Ordeal.”

I had the honor of interviewing Alma Russell, whose late husband, the Rev. Henry Russell, was a local civil rights leader who was among the hundreds of marchers who were wrongfully locked up, denied due process and carted off in the dark of night to Parchman penitentiary in October 1965.

I can only imagine the courage and bravery it took for Russell and others to march under the threat of arrest in defiance of a law banning such marches — a law that was later ruled to be unconstitutional.

The protesters were locked up in a kangaroo process that was more unlawful and disgraceful than the act of civil disobedience that sparked it.

I’m sure the perpetrators — public officials, including a police chief and a prison superintendent — felt justified in their actions to enforce the law, even at the expense of defying the law in their own twisted form of civil disobedience.

They, however, were the law and the government and their actions that night proved Thoreau’s thesis that “government is best which governs least.”

The protesters were on the right side of history that night practicing a non-violent form of civil disobedience against unjust laws.

Because of the actions of people such as the Russells and Natchez Mayor Darryl Grennell’s father, Jonathan, and others who were proud to take a stand that night, we find it difficult to imagine today a Natchez such as the one that existed that October night in 1965.

Plans are in the works to erect a monument titled “Proud to Take a Stand” on the grounds of City Auditorium where the protesters were held before being transported to Parchman. I believe a monument to their efforts will be a fitting tribute, so we may never forget.

Scott Hawkins is editor of The Natchez Democrat. Reach him at 601-445-3540 or scott.hawkins@natchezdemocrat.com.