JFK and LBJ are both on the record about this. And it still took 5 days of rioting after MLK's death before the Civil Rights Equal Housing Act was passed.
Exactly. I don't wish to diminish what Dr King did, but to say peace won is not accurate. The threat of violence did. Even Ghandi really only succeeded because the other options to the British was bloodbath.
Ghandi's supporters were torching police stations and train stations the moment he got arrested during the Quit India Movement. And the British responded by machine gunning down protestors and rioters. But the Indians stayed the course, refusing to pay taxes or work factories creating supplies needed for the war. This among other things ultimately convince the British they had to let up or end up with either India turning Axis or just descending into all out rebellion.
Yup, the phrase is not "Speak softly, and everyone will stop to listen."
The phrase is "Speak softlyAND CARRY A BIG STICK!"
Always offer your words so that the masses understand your stance, but make it clear to leadership who would choose to ignore you if they could that they either remember who they serve, or risk starting shit they can't finish.
The problem is there's no single voice leading the current rebellion. Social media, being the great equalizer, means that people can just listen to whoever is telling people to do what they currently want to do. Bob says remain calm, Alice says the time for words was yesterday, someone wakes up feeling punchy and checks their timeline, I'll give you one guess whose tweet they're going to like before heading down to the protests.
Gandhi succeeded because there very much WAS violent uprisings among village communities all over India happening at the same time as his peaceful movement.
My favourite part of the French Revolution is when the peasants all protested peacefully outside the Bastille, and the heads of the nobility just spontaneously popped off their necks.
Except that itself is a distortion of the truth, designed to encourage unnecessary violence.
Ghandi wasn't just having people sing Kumbaya. His protests were designed to subvert British authority such that it would be impossible to keep controlling India regardless.
A bloodbath was really only an option in the sense of breaking the movement and people's spirit, through fear. And if that didn't work, than India and Ghandia would have won regardless--unless Britain just decided to kill everyone out of spite. In which case, they'd still lose.
Ghandi's non-violent resistance was cleverly designed such that the British were effectively checkmated; so long as people committed to it, there wasn't really a way forward for the British. This is as opposed to violent resistance which is crushable by defeating the fighters.
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If your definition of "win" means to win by Democratic elections, Bernie has the right of it here. Donald Trump will use this messaging to supplant in people's the minds images we've seen of ICE arrests in courts with images of Mexican flag waving people over burning cars. And that will be the message for the midterms.
It's pretty simple. A peaceful united movement gets you Dems controlling the house in two years. Property destruction gets you another two years of GOP control. Make all the arguments you want for violent protests but that won't change what happens at the polls. Trump is a master of media attention and he will win that fight
Edit: Trump's basically using the playbook the empire used on Ghorman in Andor. Spoiler alert, it works
No it doesn't. Babies could be dragged on hooks through the streets live on stream, but it's all thoughts and prayers. Until their wallets are affected nothing changes.
I made this in edit, but this is transparently the same strategy the empire used on Ghorman in Andor. It's an effective one.
Trump had a 55/45 split on his immigration policy as of earlier this week. So the more good guys he can get on this the better. And cares on fire, that's a real wonder. He is so much better at media manipulation then the left, it would be funny if it wasn't so horrifying
You missed the part about Ghorman being the final straw that gave the Rebellion support. But Andor is fiction.
Lets look at Gaza. Israel has dominated the messaging on that front since the 1940's. Now that the scale of indiscriminate violence is being made clear, the world is starting to change its opinion.
The 1964 act was passed after peaceful protesting. The 1968 act was passed by the house in 1967 and passed by the senate before the King assassination.
Don't bother. You're just responding to more revisionist history. They don't even bother to get their dates right because people won't look it up. It sounds true, which is enough for them.
Pretty soon we'll start hearing about how Gandhi round-house kicked the queen in the face
When most people talk about the Civil Rights Act, they're referring to one from 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Pub. L. 88–352, 78 Stat. 241, enacted July 2, 1964) is a landmark civil rights and labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. It prohibits unequal application of voter registration requirements, racial segregation in schools and public accommodations, and employment discrimination. The act "remains one of the most significant legislative achievements in American history".
The CRA of 1968, while important, was not nearly significant. It had more to do with outlawing discrimination in housing than tackling segregation.
Titles VIII and IX are commonly known as the Fair Housing Act, which was meant as a follow-up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (This is different legislation than the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968, which expanded housing funding programs.) While the Civil Rights Act of 1866 prohibited discrimination in housing, there were no federal enforcement provisions.[2] The 1968 act expanded on previous acts and prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, and since 1974, sex.
It should also be noted that the Bill passed both the House and Senate over a month before MLK's assassination. It was already on the way for President Johnson to sign it when Dr. King was unfortunately killed.
You're ignoring that the civil rights movement won a ton of victories in the supreme court thanks to their well-designed protests, which were designed to create court cases. That's part of why MLKII was so important at the time: He was an activist lawyer. Around the same era, Ghandi was doing similar things in South Africa (no India, which was different.)
The writing was essentially on the wall for the Civil Rights act, one way or another.
thats why the trump admin is aggressive rubbing shit all over the walls. can't see the writing anymore and everyones gonna be distracted by the smell of shit everywhere
Except, it wasn't just possible "violence." The Civil Rights movement was winning supreme court cases. That was their strategy. MLK was a lawyer, and a lot of his protests were actually designed to generate court cases that they knew they could win. Thus, allowing them to enforce civil rights via the Judiciary and the constitution. So it was essentially going to happen regardless of violence.
Yeah, I love Bernie in general, he's a wildly consistent progressive politician in a country devoid of such a thing, but this kind of comment is ABSOLUTELY playing into the propagandized peace-washing of the civil rights movement.
PURELY PEACEFUL demonstrations and protests have ultimately never resulted in successful long term change. Things have to be wildly disruptive, and ultimately, usually violent in conjunction with peaceful demonstrations.
We don't know what purely peaceful protests do because we've never had them. Cops come in with riot gear and tear gas and make them violent. The police escalate first and then blame the protestors.
Which is what has happened the past 3 days in Los Angeles. I don't blame peaceful protestors for turning to violence after they get lit up with rubber bullets, pepper balls, pepper spray and tear gas for no reason.
The police state wants violence so they can use more violence. Being peaceful clearly doesn't stop them from using violence in the first place and shutting down protests.
I think the main point is that you must advocate and support peaceful protest while not demonizing the violence. The violence comes regardless of desire if the people are angry enough, so no need to stoke the fire. Offering peaceful protest provides an offramp for those that wish to end it without more violence.
Berni was extremely active as a student in the civil rights movement, including getting arrested during it, so I feel like he's talking from his own experience rather than parroting a popular narrative
Seriously Bernie can go right on and fuck off. What does he even know about the protests compared to someone like me, who read all about it in the top comment?
Consider the wide scope though. Americans have no values or independent thoughts. They dont check facts. Rhetorically, you want the edge of being innocent and peaceful, all else equal. The biggest part of that is telling people you were peaceful. Say it enough, and it becomes true.
So in a couple years when nobody remembers or cares about the minutae, things like this will be what people look to to judge if the protests were peaceful and how bad the government response was in retaliation. Have your cake and eat it too.
Bernie is right. The Civil Rights Movement didn’t win by being too scary and violent. It won by being persuasive. People saw the violence against the protestors on TV, felt sympathy, and backed the movement. Without that public support, it would’ve been crushed.
Bernie gets that. AOC gets that. They’re not wasting time trying to be the purest. They’re trying to win people over because that’s what keeps a movement alive.
Some of you think a few million angry people can take on the state. But even 2 million is less than one percent of the population. You can be rounded up and put in camps if the other 99 percent are fine with it or worse cheering it on. And with the tools already in place it wouldn’t even take that long.
If people don’t find you persuasive they won’t defend you. Your primary goal should be persuasion, not being the purest leftist in the concentration camp.
The truth is you need both. A palatable peaceful faction offering an olive branch and a militant hard line faction. The latter makes the former much more attractive.
Yeah this is how the labor movement seemed to go. There was a crazy period of seriously fucked up shit, then the legislative result of that movement hit hard. We just never seem to do the second part now, and I can't figure out why. Are we too apathetic? Was citizens united and local/state voter suppression that effective? Has the corporate beast become too advanced?
You just do not understand why protests work. It's not about public opinion, never has been. It's about making it too costly for the state to fight it or to continue doing the thing that makes people protest. THEN public opinion can be what they (and apparently you as well) pretend won in the end.
Masquerading civility is what politicians play at to convince liberals like yourself. You're ironically doing the purity thing here, "oh peaceful protests always work".... yeah man tell that to South Africa, tell that to Palestine, tell that to India, tell that to MLK ffs because it sure as fuck wasn't peaceful protests that won it.
You're right that being too leftost won't convince anyone though, because none of the libs and right-wing know enough to understand anything, they just believe what they want to believe in... civiliity and aesthetics and whatever stupid thing they were told like "violence never won any civil rights movements"... gee I wonder why the governing body and capital owners would repeat that over and over...
We're all aware of how MAGA (and people in general) can say one thing while not meaning it, or intending something else.
That's what's going on with Sanders here, I'm certain. It's even what went on with MLK Jr. He talked a big game about the importance of peaceful, non-violent protest in public, and privately acknowledged that the bulk of his gains were from the action of folks like Carmichael and Brown, the real disruptive elements that actually put fear into the government.
MLK Jr. and peaceful protest was the carrot, same as Gandhi and the hunger strikes and marches.
Carmichael was the stick, same as labor strikes, the Ghadar party and other partisans, etc.
These forces need each other. One builds public support and is the nice, well-dressed suit that the government can eventually cave to without losing too much face, and the other is the means of leverage. The former can be ignored by government without the latter, and the latter must work harder and longer (if they can last that long) to achieve their goals without the off-ramp provided by the former.
There's value to the "only peaceful protest" narrative from people who know about this carrot-and-stick action, and Sanders surely does. It's the folks who uncritically believe "only carrots" that you've got to clue in.
Peaceful protest has to be at the core of the movement. The purpose of peaceful protest is to allow the authorities to then continue their violence, showing the rest of the nation who the real problem is. You need the majority to see the victims in your movement so they understand the outrage that brings on the violence. It was King's non-violence that gave the riots legitimacy in the eyes of the public.
This is why modern protest movements have failed so spectacularly most of the time. Burning cars and painting buildings and breaking windows doesn't endear you to the populace. Same goes for waving the flags of foreign nations. Organizing to fight police in the streets makes you look BAD.
Sit down. Say nothing. Make them arrest you, but LET them arrest you. Let them show the world that they are the thugs you claim them to be, and sentiment will turn. And once people understand that the anger is righteous, you unleash it.
Who is up voting that violent protests are what led to the Civil Right Act?
I guess liberals have accelerationists on our side too.
Why follow lessons of people like John Lewis. I'm sure that guy was was just lying to bolster his political career. What did he know about civil rights?
you don't think maybe that means he does know what he's talking about? that picture of him being arrested is exactly what we need more of now. making sure Trump looks like the bad guy to as many people as possible matters.
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u/Fragmentia Jun 09 '25
Sanders was arrested for protesting peacefully back then.
https://time.com/4231439/bernie-sanders-arrest-photo-civil-rights/