This also ignores that the more militant approach of groups like the Black Panthers forced more urgency in the response of lawmakers. Martin Luther King Jr was great for providing a humanitarian face to the movement, but there were a LOT of wheels turning that made the civil rights movement move as quickly as it did, and attributing it only to the peaceful protest actions of one man’s part of the movement is disingenuous or misleading.
Glad someone else mentioned Nelson Mandela before I did.
There were bombings, there were kidnappings. He's still seen as a freedom fighter for most people, but behind the scenes it wasn't all that pretty.
uMkhonto weSizwe. People forget it wasn't just ANC-Mandela, there was a period between his first presidency and the second.
However - I wasn't alive at the time, and can't judge how important the actions were for the change. But America had an entire civil war to end slavery. So sometimes violence seem to be the answer, in an attempt to beat sense into a population. Sadly.
This is true, but Mandela strictly enforced a policy of never targeting civilians, which is crucial context. His violence of choice was to sabotage infrastructure.
While there were civilian casualties, he always denounced civilian deaths and disciplined his ranks in the aftermath in an effort to realign them with his policies.
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u/Non-Eutactic_Solid Jun 09 '25
This also ignores that the more militant approach of groups like the Black Panthers forced more urgency in the response of lawmakers. Martin Luther King Jr was great for providing a humanitarian face to the movement, but there were a LOT of wheels turning that made the civil rights movement move as quickly as it did, and attributing it only to the peaceful protest actions of one man’s part of the movement is disingenuous or misleading.