benlehman

IMHO, sending armed men to open the doors of a school for black children was not an example of nonviolence, despite the fact that it was working for the same goals as the nonviolent resistance of MLKJr.

I suspect that sufficient nonviolent action would have rendered those armed men unnecessary, but that's a purely theoretical question. We can not know either way, as that is not the way things turned out.

The moment of effective nonviolent action comes not when the nonviolent protestors convince the Feds to come in with guns and force people to allow them into the school, but at the moment where firefighters manning firehoses disobey the orders of the police chief ordering them to turn on the protestors. THAT is where effective nonviolent action comes in.

The power of nonviolent action comes not in hurting or controlling the "bad guys," but in allowing the "bad guys" to transform into "good guys" of their own free will.