Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (King Legacy Book 2)

by Martin Luther King Jr.

When legal contests were the sole form of activity, the ordinary Negro was involved as a passive spectator. His interest was stirred, but his energies were unemployed. Mass marches transformed the common man into the star performer and engaged him in a total commitment. Yet nonviolent resistance caused no explosions of anger—it instigated no riots—it controlled anger and released it under discipline for maximum effect. What lobbying and imploring could not do in legislative halls, marching feet accomplished a thousand miles away. When the Southern Christian Leadership Conference went into Birmingham in 1963, it intended to change that city. But the effect of its campaign was so extensive that President Kennedy was forced to conclude that national legislation was indispensable, and the first civil rights bill with substance was enacted in 1964. Nonviolent direct action had proved to be the most effective generator of change that the movement had seen, and by 1965 all civil rights organizations had embraced it as theirs.

This is an important observation t speaks to organizing