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His way was nonviolent, not peaceful.

What he was doing and why is often buried in history class - you could put it as "exploiting the system until everyone feels the hurt"

Civil disobedience wasn't about a message or public sentiment - they were about getting arrested. You make a scene, the police are called, you refuse to cooperate until they're forced to arrest you.

Having been arrested, they either let you go and you do it again, or they charge you - and now you're in the court system. Now you have standing to challenge the laws, appeal to higher courts, and counter-sue

They tied up the courts, ground businesses to a halt, and disrupted people's lives

It wasn't physically violent, but it was violent in a more metaphorical way. They didn't win over hearts and minds... They just made it more politically costly to keep fighting them off than to give in

And there's an argument to be made that this all wouldn't have worked without the black Panthers... Their purpose was to show up armed when the police came to black neighborhoods. They were an unspoken threat - we're playing within the rules of the system, but if you break them all bets are off

He used peace because the bigots seeing "inferior violent savages" organizing peaceful protests made them more uncomfortable than if they were violent. It's not because he thought violent protest was outright bad, just not as useful in his circumstances. He worked along side of organizers who did use violence. His approach was likely strengthened by this. Also, so many of his protests were called riots by the media. If you take a stand against the monied, they will use it to make your movement appear violent and evil even when it's not.