I may not be correct but I believe that Martin Luther King implied that if they were to protest with violent it would only result in more violence as a retaliation by the government. So by doing peaceful protest the government didnt have an actual solid reason to attack them, so when the government did enact violence on them it caught the attention of people around the world.
Answer:
Slaves provided much of the labor on plantations that grew cash crops.
Plantations were the main economic activity in the American South during the antebellum period. These plantations cultivated cotton, tobacco, sugar, indigo, and rice. The warm climate, plentiful rainfall and fertile soil meant that the plantations were able to flourish. However, they were labour-intensive, and most workers were African slaves. Planters held dozens, or sometimes hundreds, of slaves, making slave labor very important to the economy of the Southern colonies.
