There have been many times when present day America has been affected by its past but the past of the 1860's and the 1960's especially effected present day America. There are three major ways that America was affected because of the 1860's and the 1960's. The first way is the start of civil disobedience in the 1860's. Another way is how women started to get treated in the late 1960's. And the third way is what blacks started to accomplish in the 1960's. There are other ways that these two years affected America but these are the major ones.
In the 1840's Henry David Thoreau came up with an idea that is called "civil disobedience." Civil Disobedience is when someone breaks the law when they do not believe in something and they do it in a civil manner and take the consequences. Once this was created many times after in the near or late future to this the United States citizens have felt the need to revolt against the government. There were such cases during the time of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. They used civil disobedience to eventually get what they felt is right. It was important to Thoreau to get the public informed about the concept of civil disobedience so, when war's broke out it would make people think maybe the war is wrong and do not have to support it. Thoreau never rallied thousands of people together to get reactions. Instead he went to jail to protest and wrote his essay "Civil Disobedience." Dr. Martin Luther King took the same idea of passive resistance to protest the injustices brought upon the African American race in the United States. Dr. King, like Thoreau, was willing to suffer for his views, especially when he found himself faced with disciplinary laws denying civil rights to all citizens. So with Thoreau creating this it affected great leaders (Dr. Martin Luther King) and even great leaders now. Women though were not treated fair at all from 1860 to the early 1960's.