The point of protest is to (peacefully) coerce the government by means of disruption. I'm making a huge boiling down of MLKs philosophy, but he was very clear: if you don't use methods of coercion, the government has no reason to pay attention.

[–] novibe@lemmy.ml 24 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Also very important to remember, the changes MLK fought for only came about after he was murdered by the CIA and there were massive riots, extremely violent in some cases.

[–] agent_flounder@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But not The Civil Rights Act of 1964. Presumably you mean The Civil Rights Act of 1968?

I'd like to point out that while some things about the assassination of MLK don't add up, conspiracy theories don't agree about exactly who was behind the assassination. A civil case in 1999 pointed to the Mafia and Nashville law enforcement, for example.

Although there isn't sufficient evidence, I think, to draw a solid conclusion about any of these theories, I don't think they are outside the realm of plausibility.

After all, the FBI had expended quite a bit of effort to discredit MLK. They had mailed alleged sex tapes to King with a letter urging him to kill himself. And we now know that the FBI had put together a dossier of unverified claims. It's also well known King was wiretapped on the word of J E Hoover since 1963 and surveilled since 1956.

As threatened as racists in power were by MLK, it isn't a huge stretch to imagine one of the more corrupt ones going farther than simply attempting to discredit him or push him to suicide, since those tactics didn't work.