Question

Discuss the challenges and difficulties of Dr. King's non-violent approach to protest. Do you feel these strategies were effective?

Answer 1

Answer: Three challenges Martin Luther King Jr. faced in the battle for equal rights included the opposition of "good" white people to his tactics, his realization that the only way to win civil rights was to proceed nonviolently, and pushback against his plan in the late 1960s to unite Black people and white people in a war on poverty.

King pushed back against critics of his methods. In Birmingham, he led Black people in protest marches and boycotts against racial segregation in that city. After he was jailed for his activities, he learned that a group of eight white clergymen had sent a letter to the newspapers saying he had gone too far. King knew he had to stop this dissent from people who were supposed to be on his side, so he sent his "Letter from Birmingham City Jail" explaining that nothing would be accomplished without disruptive, but nonviolent, action.

King also had the problem of needing white support to get civil rights legislation passed in the United States, because the country was predominantly white and white people held most of the power. He realized that any whiff of Black violence would provide the pretext for white people to crush his movement. Therefore, he trained his followers in Gandhi's techniques of nonviolence and was continually challenged to find ways to protest that were disruptive without spilling over into violence. His nonviolent approach was controversial but ultimately effective.

Finally, King faced opposition when, in the late 1960s, he tried to unify poor Black people and poor white people together in solidarity and spoke out to oppose the Vietnam War. In the end, his message was more than some could take, and he was assassinated in 1968.

I feel Dr. King's strategies were somewhat effective.