When peaceful protest meets violent reality – The Cougar

“There’s no such thing as nonviolent resistance.” 

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” 

This Black History Month, many people will be remembering Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous words, spoken in his 1957 sermon in Montgomery, Alabama. These words echo the sentiments of many other well-known phrases: turn the other cheek, don’t sink to their level and remember that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

These refrains are so common that they often go unquestioned. From an early age, students are taught to value compromise and peaceful protest as the primary and most legitimate ways to resist injustice.

Historical figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi are widely emphasized in educational curricula for their commitment to nonviolent resistance. While movements involving armed resistance are discussed less frequently or in less depth.

For example, maroon communities, groups of formerly enslaved people who escaped and organized resistance against plantation systems, are not always explored extensively in standard curricula. Similarly, the Black Panther Party is often presented in limited or simplified ways. 

Students also learn about John Brown, the white abolitionist who raided a federal armory in an attempt to arm enslaved people. Though his efforts ultimately failed and led to his execution for treason. The way these histories are presented can shape broader perceptions about which forms of resistance are remembered, emphasized and considered legitimate.

When suffering became strategy

King is the very face of nonviolent resistance, famous for his use of civil disobedience and preaching for peace and cooperation. During the many marches and sit-ins King organized, he instructed protesters not to fight back when attacked by police or angry white bystanders. He also ensured there were plenty of photographers on the scenes to document the beatings and police brutality that inevitably occurred.

This strategy of gaining public sympathy via media attention culminated in the Children’s Crusade in 1963. King’s campaign was beginning to stagnate; adults were reluctant to protest for fear of losing their jobs. It was James Bevel, another civil rights strategist, who proposed the solution: using children. 

King initially opposed the idea, but he ultimately approved it. On May 2, 1963, thousands of African American children walked out of school to be handcuffed, blasted with fire hoses and set upon by police dogs.

This is where the famous photograph was captured that changed everything.  Taken by American photographer Bill Hudson, it shows a 15-year-old boy caught mid-step with the jaws of a German Shepherd inches from sinking into his belly. Its leash is held by a white cop, whose hand is fisted in the boy’s knit sweater. The street is crowded; many dark faces turn to look at the scene, but nobody goes to help. The boy does not fight back. The violence was the point.

This iconic image was published in newspapers around the world. The outrage it sparked paved the way for the desegregation of Birmingham and, eventually, the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

It resulted from the strategic choice to have children be brutalized on camera, and it worked. But what it really shows is that there is no such thing as nonviolent resistance. There is only a question of who is experiencing the violence, the people doing the oppressing or the people forced to endure it.

Nonviolence in the modern era

Of course, peaceful methods for resolving conflict should always be tried first, and they can work if those in power are receptive to change. But how can we turn the other cheek in a country where selfishness and cruelty are rewarded with power?

In the United States, it seems like protest alone is no longer enough to force meaningful change. Hunger strikes and even extreme acts of self-sacrifice in support of Palestine have captured attention, but the policy outcomes remain unclear. 

Videos of immigration enforcement and detention practices circulate online constantly, yet detention centers continue to expand, including in Texas. Images of children in detention centers have become some of the defining photographs of our generation. Yet public outrage often struggles to translate into lasting action.

Moments that should feel impossible to ignore instead become part of the daily stream of information people scroll past. Over time, the shock fades, and what once sparked national attention becomes normalized. 

This raises difficult questions about the limits of moral appeals alone. King’s philosophy showed the power of nonviolent resistance, but it also depended on the public’s willingness to confront injustice and respond.

Today, that response feels less certain, and it forces us to question what meaningful resistance looks like in a time when awareness does not always lead to change.

Opinion@thedailycougar.com