This is a good articulation of mlkjr's theology and dicipline around nonviolence, but I think its incomplete if you read it in isolation.
His strategy worked because it existed alongside MANY other voices, IMO the most underrated of which is Malcolm X, that rejected this "gradualism" outright and refused endless delay.
They weren't organizing violence but they were instead making it credible that there is a world where those "peaceful" people do not accept complicity or "no" for an answer.
This shifted the baseline of what a "compromise" could look like (as we today see baselines shift very frequently often in a less just direction)
Seen that way, nonviolence wasn't just a moral stance, it was one side of a coin and once piece of a broader ecosystem of pressure from different directions. King's approach was powerful because there were alternatives he was NOT choosing.
You cannot have nonviolence unless violence is a credible threat from a game-theory perspective. And that contrast made his path viable without endorsing the alternatives as a model
His strategy worked because it existed alongside MANY other voices, IMO the most underrated of which is Malcolm X, that rejected this "gradualism" outright and refused endless delay.
They weren't organizing violence but they were instead making it credible that there is a world where those "peaceful" people do not accept complicity or "no" for an answer.
This shifted the baseline of what a "compromise" could look like (as we today see baselines shift very frequently often in a less just direction)
Seen that way, nonviolence wasn't just a moral stance, it was one side of a coin and once piece of a broader ecosystem of pressure from different directions. King's approach was powerful because there were alternatives he was NOT choosing.
You cannot have nonviolence unless violence is a credible threat from a game-theory perspective. And that contrast made his path viable without endorsing the alternatives as a model