Notes

The successful tactics of the Civil Rights Movement are well known through dozens of books and stunning documentaries like Eyes on the Prize, but they are always worth recalling as evidence for what strategic nonviolence can accomplish in the hands of a value-based movement with clear objectives. Each of its victories is a textbook example of how nonviolent tactics can create the necessary form of social disruption to force authorities to change specific unjust customs and laws. Bus boycotts, for example, caused financial crises for municipal bus systems and put white drivers out of work. Downtown boycotts and marches in many Southern cities kept African-American dollars out of the coffers of white merchants and scared away white shoppers, forcing business leaders and politicians to negotiate changes.

Sit-ins jolted people out of their routines, caused managers to close lunch counters to avoid serving African-Americans, filled overcrowded jails, and exhausted the limited resources of local police forces. Freedom rides upset racist whites who enjoyed exercising their small rituals of racial superiority. The ensuing white violence forced the federal government to intervene on the side of the freedom riders, who soon included many Northern whites drawn into the struggle by the courage and determination of the nonviolent activists. Giant marches to state capitols did not merely register the size and resolve of movement support, which is the main thing most current-day marches accomplish, but forced the police to protect African-Americans from violent white racists.