Answer:
B. By gaining media attention, nonviolent protests helped sway
public opinion, but they could not change laws without the help of
other methods.
Explanation:
King and his followers were convinced that nonviolence was the only morally justified and practically feasible way available to black Americans in their struggle for justice. However, the non-violent tactics of the Albany police chief Lori Pritchett opposed the tactics of mass arrests. Demonstrators were arrested on any pretext and thrown into jail. King himself was arrested three times during the Albany campaign for unauthorized demonstrations. The police did not use dogs, clubs and fire hoses here to restore order. The policemen showed their cruelty in places inaccessible to journalistic cameras - in barracks and barns, turned into temporary prisons. The national American and international press has repeatedly expressed sympathy for the protesting black citizens of Albany, but the federal government has not been able to get real support. The movement was defeated. From the Albany failure, King learned a valuable lesson: in order for a strike to reach its goal, one cannot scatter forces it is needed to focus on one aspect of the problem. Thus, the defeat in this campaign was influenced by the following main reasons: the lack of unity among the leaders of the Negro community (many of them saw “strangers” in King and his comrades-in-arms and were afraid of the revenge of the white racists after the leaders of the movement leave the city), the absence of clearly developed strategy and ignorance of local specifics. King's critics declared nonviolence a dead doctrine, forgetting a number of significant achievements in Albany: almost all black residents of the city took part in the movement; parks, libraries and bus lines were closed even for whites the attention of the whole world was riveted to the Albany confrontation; a new form of protest for the civil rights movement was introduced here - a massive street demonstration.
Soon, the doctrine of non-violence was subjected to another test of viability during the confrontation in the largest industrial center of Alabama - Birmingham, known as the city of "the largest segregation in the country." The alleged mass participation of youth and adolescents in the demonstrations caused concern of the central press, which for several centuries was silent about the fact that the segregated social system from its very birth disfigured and destroyed young black Americans. More than 2,500 peaceful demonstrators were arrested. Under pressure from the international community, President Kennedy’s administration finally intervened in the events in Birmingham. The response to Birmingham events was mass demonstrations and performances under the slogan “Freedom Immediately!”, which took place over four months in 196 cities in 35 states. It was already a powerful movement.
The path to the formal abolition of segregation has been opened. A little over a year passed, and in July 1964, after the death of John F. Kennedy, the United States Civil Rights Act was passed. He outlawed any discrimination on racial, ethnic, religious or other grounds.
