How effective was nonviolence as a means to achieve social reform?

A succession of landmark civil rights legislation swept through Congress amid the widespread liberal movements of the "Stormy Sixties." It was during this revolutionary decade that mesmeric leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X mobilized the African American population in large-scale protest for racial equality. While Dr. King advocated peaceful civil disobedience, Malcolm X later promoted radical separatist militancy and a black pride emphasized by the Black Panthers. Ultimately, however, King's means for achieving racial equality proved to be much more successful than the use of violence. Effective non-violent techniques such as sit-ins to desegregate public facilities in the South and "Freedom Riding" to integrate interstate buses effectively ensnared the country's attention. Viewers saw photographs of peaceful civil rights marchers repelled by police with attack dogs and fire hydrant hoses and were awakened to the cruelty and injustice. Brutality against those who did not fight back triggered great sympathy from the American people, whereas violent black riots and arson in urban ghettos outraged many whites. Within years of MLK's peaceful protests, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, giving the federal government more power to enforce desegregation in public facilities and in employment. Moreover, after a voter registration campaign (with participation by blacks and whites) led by MLK was attacked by state troopers in 1965, President Johnson ushered through the Voting Rights Act which outlawed literacy tests and sent federal officials into several southern states to oversee voter registration. Clearly, nonviolence was much more successful than hostility in attaining both civil liberties and respect for the African American community.