Civil disobedience is a form of protest in which individuals or groups refuse to comply with laws, demands, and commands of a government or occupying power. Henry David Thoreau was an American author and philosopher who wrote the ESSAY 'Civil Disobedience' in 1849, which argued that people should not allow governments to oppress them and should instead disobey unjust laws. ROSA Parks was an African-American civil rights activist who famously refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955, sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott. SEDITION is a term used to describe actions or speech that oppose or criticize a government or occupying power, and can be seen as a form of civil disobedience.