Thanks for posting this. I couldn't watch this without crying. He paid the ultimate price for his dream and now we are seeing it come to pass. Hurray for all our heroes! My dad was appointed Judge by Gov. Wallace. I saw the story of racism firsthand and stood against it even as a child. It is a very painful and fearful spectacle to see prejudice in action. Thank you Martin Luther King.
One of the things I admire about MLK is that he understood how to make his "non-violent" acts VERY confrontational. He recognized that the increasing presence of national media was going to play a large part in the Civil Rights movement, so he wanted the northerners to turn on the news and see a group of whites harming a group of innocent blacks. He knew that once you took away the innocence of the black protesters you would lose all sympathy from northerners.
He also understood how the news was going to go - he set things up for the "clip" and "soundbite".
I can't remember who said it, but they basically said Bull Connor did more for the civil rights movement than anyone by using dogs and not turning off the cameras.
Tom Clancy started one of his books with the scenario of Palestinians finally wising up and using non-violent methods against Israel. One news clip of Palestinians singing "we shall overcome" in Arabic and getting tear gassed and knocked down with rubber bullets and clubbed and NOONE (especially the US) could claim they had the moral high ground - Holocaust or no - and set the stage for finally brokering peace in the Middle East.
