Where are you drawing the line exactly? Both Ghandi and MLK broke laws, and in many cases did so by disrespecting other people's property rights (sit ins, for one, are exactly this and often were against corporate entities as well as govt. ones).
Furthermore there was a fairly large segment of the civil rights movement that disagreed with MLK and thought the strategies he promoted would not lead to acceptance of "black culture" but instead the acceptance of blacks into "white culture" (ie: ok fine if you act and dress like us then we wont hate you). It's painfully clear that there are still massive inequalities in terms of the way people of different races are treated in the US, and I would argue MLK's limited success in getting rid of racism was at the cost of the introduction of even heavier, subtler and harder to eradicate classism (yes Obama is president, but we all remember the "is he black enough" debates).
So while I don't entirely disagree with you, let's not make it seem like there is obviously a right or wrong here, and that by simply "looking at history" we can we can see that. Usually I like your posts but this one really lacks nuance...at least it is appropriately tagged "rant."
Furthermore there was a fairly large segment of the civil rights movement that disagreed with MLK and thought the strategies he promoted would not lead to acceptance of "black culture" but instead the acceptance of blacks into "white culture" (ie: ok fine if you act and dress like us then we wont hate you). It's painfully clear that there are still massive inequalities in terms of the way people of different races are treated in the US, and I would argue MLK's limited success in getting rid of racism was at the cost of the introduction of even heavier, subtler and harder to eradicate classism (yes Obama is president, but we all remember the "is he black enough" debates).
So while I don't entirely disagree with you, let's not make it seem like there is obviously a right or wrong here, and that by simply "looking at history" we can we can see that. Usually I like your posts but this one really lacks nuance...at least it is appropriately tagged "rant."