MLK was only successful because Malcom X was the alternative, and the powers that be knew it.

I think this guy hit the nail in the head.

Peaceful protest only works if politicians and financial elite has fear and/or respect towards the commond man/woman. Too much elitisms strips away the respect, too many years of peaceful protests takes away the fear. Sometimes ivory towers need to come down, but violence has a tendency to spread and spiral out of control. It's a balance trick.

Nelson Mandela was released on the terms that he would preach peaceful protest, as the movement he had formerly been leading was a serious threat to the South African Government.

Reverend Martin Luther King Jr was a proponent of peaceful protest, though it could be argued he was losing faith in it near the end when he was assassinated. right after his death, the Holy Week Uprisings occurred, which saw immediate action from the federal government to pass the Civil Rights Act.

At the same time, acts of violence lie on a spectrum, and I think there is a fair amount of conversation to be had about what degree of violence and what type of violence are most effective.

Yea only under the threat of violence has power ever changed hands. You need both peaceful and violent components to any movement to make any change last though.

The historical record says that if violence isn’t working, you’re just not using enough of it.

The USA would still be a colony of Britain if it wasn't for a violent revolution.

The problem with the fetishization of non-violence is that it ignores that most transformative non-violent social movements have occurred concurrently with violent co-movements. Ghandi preached non-violence, but at the same time, violent Hindu radicals were running around slitting the throats of every British official they could get their hands on. MLK preached non-violence, but the Black Panthers were waiting in the wings, offering a much more unpleasant option if MLK failed.

Violent social movements have very real tangible value, but their value isn't in the violence itself. We're not going to change the health insurance system through pure violence, no matter how many CEOs lay dead on the streets of Manhattan.

On the other hand, non-violent social movements rarely succeed either. Even the most modest, centrist, and conciliatory of reforms are derided as extreme or "Communist." Look at Obamacare, a reform designed from the ground up to NOT disrupt the profits of the insurance or healthcare industries. This was a modest market-based reform that was originally a Republican reform plan. The right spent a decade going nuts calling it the second coming of Mao. And they still oppose it to this day. In the end it tinkered around the edges, but it was hardly transformative change.

The real value of violence is that it makes modest peaceful reforms much more palatable. The civil rights amendments and acts passed in the 1960s and 1970s would have never passed if there were only peaceful movements behind them. They amended the damn constitution! That took people on both sides of the aisle saying, "damn, we really need to change some things. This is getting out of hand."

And that kind of broad bipartisan consensus that reform was needed was only possible because of the threat of violence. Violent radicals like the Black Panthers made MLK palatable to middle America. Without them, MLK would have just been another radical socialist to be demonized. And even then, they still killed him anyway.

The real value of violent social movements is that they make non-violent social movements possible. In fact, without violence, non-violent social movements rarely succeed. You need BOTH violence and non-violence if you want to make substantial change to the system. The violence puts the fear of God into the placid middle classes and wealthy corporate interests. This allows the non-violent reformers to show up with a solution to the problem that allows these centrist factions to feel that they're not giving in to the violent radicals. Violence and non-violence are two sides of the same coin. And they are both essential.

The US is a successful country and has almost always been at war.

Britain at its peak was holding 10s of countries at gunpoint.

Violence works best if you are much much stronger than the other party.

non-violent resistance is more often effective

It's only ever effective when a credible violent alternative is present.

No oppressed person in history has ever gotten their rights by appealing to the better nature of their oppressor.

Civil rights weren't won when black people asked politely and just moving everyone's hearts at how unjustly they were being treated, when MLK died, he had a 75% disapproval rating. Civil rights were won through repeated demonstrations of power and showing what would happen if their demands weren't met.