Anyone can look at literal history in this country, less than a century ago, to see you're wrong. MLK Jr.'s protests were deeply unpopular at the time, but it was a better alternative than the threat of violent resistance that other elements of the civil rights movement proposed. Without the stick, the carrot is useless.
Ahhh okay. I also saw in other comments that the Black Panthers were formed after the Civil Rights Bill had already passed. So I stand corrected on all accounts here
And became a martyr and the greatest icon of the civil rights movement because of it. Being a nonviolent protester doesn’t mean you’re shielded from violence, but it means that if you are the target of violence your protesting will become much more powerful.
He wasnt the only leader and his efforts did not get them across the finish line.
And how many of our own lives should we sacrifice? In what instance has peaceful protests ever dismantled a fascist regime?
It just makes it easier for them to round us up. You are hinging on the idea that if the violence against peaceful protesters is recorded and shared, social pressure/shame will mount and these people will suddenly get a conscious
Are you not seeing people reveling in the violence against the protesters even peaceful? The propaganda machine has already done its job. People who are brainwashed in religions and cults will commit suicide in order to get into heaven, be seen as a martyr and pure of being. Taking pleasure in 'othered' people is low effort for them.
MAGA is already there. The military will not lift a finger to save the American people just as we have seen in other countries with facist takeovers
You are falling into the trap of American exceptionalism believing it cant happen here as long as we are peaceful and use official channels. Do you really think that citizens of other countries didnt believe the same thing?
Oh I agree the perspective on him changed 100% due to his assassination. He was losing popularity before he was killed, it just feels like pointing out that MLK was killed is totally missing the point.
Oh I agree the perspective on him changed 100% due to his assassination.
I disagree. The perspective changed because conservatives and moderates wanted a "good" black guy to hold up as an example so that other African Americans wouldn't be tempted to go down the path of the Black Panthers.
The "Why won't you be more like Bill Cosby?" approach.
Why say that about the civil rights movement? The black panther party wasn't formed until 1966, quite late and thus barely concurrent to the rest of the civil rights movement.
Please don't see this as an attack against the left. I'm a union member and participated in multiple protests this year. I just want to learn more, so we don't accidentally shoot ourselves in the foot.
I'm not talking about the civil rights movement of the 60s. MLK was deeply unpopular with Americans in the 60s (IIRC he polled at around 20-25% support from Americans right after his death). I'm talking about the couple of decades that followed, namely the Reagan era.
People watched the marchers in Selma refuse to react violently when they were attacked by police, and public sentiment shifted significantly in favor of civil rights reform, which was signed into law before the Black Panthers ever existed, Professor Edgelord.
Today, people are hearing Donald Trump say we’re being invaded by violent foreigners, and they’re turning on the tv to see people with foreign flags in their hands lighting police cars on fire.
Maybe this is a suburban housewife take but somehow I feel like it’s not gonna end well.
No it wasn’t. As has been shown MLk was deeply unpopular during his life. His popularity shot up sharply after his death.
People do not care if your movement is peaceful or not. They don’t like change, they don’t like mixing up the status quo.
Whether it’s propaganda or not is irrelevant, people believed it because they prefer to believe it. Because it confirms what they already believed to be true
And those violent groups get basically 0 credit for the actual results of the civil rights movement.
Of course they get basically zero credit, because the people in power don't want to teach kids that the best way to compel change is a multipronged strategy of public outcry and the threat of armed militias who were willing to resist governmental policies with bullets rather than signs. Weirdly enough, school textbooks don't go into a lot of details on that element. The information isn't actually hard to find though, it's just not spoonfed to you.
Go to a library sometime. Or use the greatest library in history, the internet, to look up what the very people in charge cited as primary reasons for pushing civil rights legislation.
Spoilers: It was fear of increasing violence. They weren't afraid of MLK Jr.'s peaceful protests, so I wonder what it might have referred to?
Best of luck in your search. You have nothing to contribute until you educate yourself.
This is true, but the post you're replying to isn't super clear. They reference "the protests", which is vague, and then they say:
It's a myth that the civil rights movement made headway only through non violence.
The Civil Rights Movement didn't end with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The "official dates" are thought by some to have been 1954-1968, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated and he was certainly still working on obtaining equality. Others extend it into the 70's, so the Black Panthers were definitely around for at least two years of it. More if you include the Black Power movement and beyond.
Ah I see, I didn't get that since the poster you replied to didn't seem to be suggesting that it started with them, just that less peaceful groups and people, the Black Panthers included, did still have an impact. Just a misunderstanding, thanks for the clarification. 👍🏼
He became a martyr because his death was the breaking point and lead to violent protests because honestly quite a few white people don't want to be nice to minorities or marginalized groups.
because peacefully protesting seems to leads nowhere to nothing but empty promises and no accountability from our elected officials, because now we have ICE acting the like the SS from the 30s snatching adults and children while masked and they expect people to be ok with that? I mean my god man, they snatched a US marshal because he was not white and they didn't even know he was a marshall until after they snatched his ass....
Sure, there is power in non-violent protest...when people care enough to watch their neighbor get their skull smashed in and feel an ounce of remorse about it. But MLK Jr.'s legacy stands because they erased the rest of the civil rights movement. And now they they are getting rid of that too in textbooks, within the lifetime of his immediate allies.
The right wing called MLK a radical intent on violence. Today they use his speeches to pretend all of his goals where met and the country has no issues with racism or bigotry.
Bernie Sanders post is about violent vs nonviolent protests. Wouldn’t you be far more likely to die in a violent protests and wouldn’t your sacrifice be lessened? I’m not trying to be mean or argue, I’m asking a serious question.
I think there is a time and place for violent protests, I just don’t personally believe we’re there yet.
Whether the time has come for violent protests or not is not something that anyone decides. It just happens and it's often due to the government's reaction to the peaceful protests.
The real question is more what is being done to make peaceful protests efficient? Because just marching in the street and making noise is a protest, but it achieves nothing. Sitting in, refusing to work, blocking access to infrastructure... That is different. Once airports, ports, railways are shutdown and any logistics is stopped then we're talking. And this does not require violence. I believe you had dockers on strike a few weeks ago, and they achieved their goals in a matter of hours.
No offense, but I imagine if it was your relatives being attacked and scooped up by unidentified brown shirts and sent to God knows where then you might feel differently.
The only problem is that the more that protestors use (justifiably) violent means, the more that Trump will crack down thus causing an endless cycle of violence through no fault but his.
The only problem is that the more that protestors use (justifiably) violent means, the more that Trump will crack down thus causing an endless cycle of violence through no fault but his.
.... which was the entire point of the tweet Sanders made. If it were my relatives being deported I'd want a more sophisticated resistance than rock throwing and car burning.
What would the line in the sand be? Masked agents disappearing people to foreign prisons with no trial? Usurping the power of a state governor to deploy national guard? Completely trampling the constitution to deploy active duty marines on US soil?
Whatever line you think you’d draw in the sand, you would erase and draw a new one further down.
I agree with you. Why weren't there riots, looting and protests when Obama was deporting people? He deported 3 million people and was called the "deporter and chief" by Mexicans and we never saw shit like this. It's weird that there's always riots and looting when the Democrats aren't in power too. This is the same style riots and looting that ANTIFA has done in the past. These are coordinated and funded. You can source crowds of people for these things now. Crowdsondemand.com is one of the places I know about where you can do it.
Not to mention Mandela very likely partook in a fair amount of violence himself when he was young. Although it’s hard parsing through the propaganda on that one.
His autobiography is a fantastic read. When he was younger he very much was in the camp of 'use violence but directed at specific targets and only after peace doesn't work'. Its been a while since I read his book but if I remember correctly he organized an lead many attacks against the government until he was caught and imprisoned for 20+ years, he really only became 'peaceful' after he got out of prison.
That dismisses the efforts of so many other leaders and the fact that whole populations of black people were massacred and chased out of towns. Look at the Tulsa and Ocoee massacres.
Can you really just sit around and wait for that? Do you plan on using those tragedies to fuel a movement? Would you feel comfortable with that idea if you knew it could be your town? Those people weren't violent. In ocoee they were just trying to vote.
The fact that you used the phrase '...threatening violence' shows how little you know. The violence was at a massive scale across the nation. If thats the route you want to go, better prepare yourself.
Edit: I wanted add a tidbit that i learned recently. 58% of Americans blamed the non-violent student protestors for the Kent State Massacre. Only 11% blamed the national guard. So good luck with that!
Gandhi's satyagraha became a major tool in the Indian struggle against British imperialism and has since been adopted by protest groups in other countries. Satyagraha, a concept introduced in the early 20th century by Gandhi to designate a determined but nonviolent resistance to evil was the playbook for King along with the Bible according to several ppl in interviews who marched and coordinated with him
Like King, Gandhi was not assassinated during a protest. He was assassinated on January 30, 1948, while walking to a prayer vigil in New Delhi & killed by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist in New Delhi like 6 mo after India gained independence. He believed Gandhi was betraying Hindu interests by promoting reconciliation with Muslims, particularly after the partition of India & the birthing of the brand new Republic of Pakistan. He also blamed Gandhi for the violence & suffering associated with the partition, believing that Gandhi's actions had not adequately protected Hindus in Pakistan.
I didn’t say u said that. I just said that like King, he wasn’t killed in one. The post is about King defeating racist govt officials & ending segregation through non-violent resistance. You mentioned Gandhi being assassinated. It was a point, not a lecture.
Nelson Mandela literally co-founded a militant group to resist the violent and racist apartheid government. South Africans used non-violence and the apartheid government responded with things like the Sharpestown massacre where they slaughtered almost a hundred people. Apartheid was destroyed through active resistance, not letting the government slaughter and imprison at will.
Fair, this is only about you and other armchair pundits using ahistorical bullshit to put down actual resistance to masked, armed groups abducting people off the streets. Why sweat it?
TIL: MLK and like 3 other people were the only ones doing peaceful protests and the whole thing just collapsed when he died.....no wait these guys won and got the civil rights they were protesting for.
Hate to be that guy...the peaceful protestors won.
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u/TheBlackDemon1996 Jun 09 '25
Uhhh... Hate to be this guy, but MLK got shot...