How Thoreau Challenged America

As Donald Trump goes after Harvard, one of the university’s most famous alums is back in the limelight with a new documentary. Henry David Thoreau, which premieres March 30 on PBS, celebrates America’s apostle of environmentalism, antiwar activism, abolitionism, indigenous rights, and more, whose writings on civil disobedience influenced Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Ewers Brothers Productions’ three-part nonfiction biopic explores how Thoreau, who returned to nature at Walden Pond from 1845 to 1847, interrupted by a fateful night in prison, perpetuated and contributed to the highest aspirations of the American Revolution.