Beyond the March: Why Civil Disobedience Isn’t Enough Today
- Fred Chavis
- Mar 29
- 5 min read
Part One: The Limits of Civil Disobedience
By Fred Chavis | The Liberation Movement
In this 3-part series, The Liberation Movement explores why civil disobedience, while historically powerful, is no longer the primary path to Black liberation. We honor our ancestors who used protest to expose injustice—but we are building something different. This is not a dismissal of their sacrifice, but a strategic evolution rooted in power. In Part One, we unpack the limits of civil disobedience and why we must move beyond visibility toward infrastructure we control.
What is Civil Disobedience?
Civil disobedience is the nonviolent refusal to comply with laws, demands, or commands of a government or occupying power, as a form of protest. It is typically used to expose injustice and force concessions or reforms from the ruling system. The method is rooted in moral appeal—it asks power to reconsider itself. The goal is often to win sympathy from the public and pressure institutions into making changes.
This was the foundation of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s strategy during the Civil Rights Movement. By refusing to obey racist laws and enduring brutal responses with 'dignity,' activists showed the world the ugliness of white supremacy.
But as Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) so clearly put it:
“Dr. King's policy was that nonviolence would achieve the gains for black people in the United States. His major assumption was that if you are nonviolent, if you suffer, your opponent will see your suffering and will be moved to change his heart. That's very good. He only made one fallacious assumption: In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none.”
Concessions Are Not Liberation
Civil disobedience is designed to win concessions, not power. But in today’s world, concessions are no longer progress—they’re delays, distractions, and death sentences.
A concession is a reform bill while toxins remain in our water.
A concession is a representation quota while we own no land.
A concession is a Black face in a high place while the people suffer at the bottom.
A concession is a nonprofit grant that funds our silence—not our freedom.
Concessions today are not made to stop our suffering—they’re made to manage it.
That is why, this time, concessions will kill us. Those who accept these concessions at the expense of our people will be complicit in our continued oppression. They will have blood on their hands—whether they know it or not.
They soften the movement. They pick out our so-called “leaders.” They stall revolutionary progress and channel it into programs that maintain the oppressive and impoverished conditions of our communities. The system is not broken--it is working exactly how it was intended.
"If you beg a man for victory and he gives it to you--it's his victory, not yours."
The Strategy for Civil Disobedience was Visibility—Not Power
Civil disobedience is about being seen. It is a performance of morality in the face of immorality.
The media doesn’t protect the truth—it protects profit. The state doesn’t fear shame—it funds it.
In 2020, millions filled the streets after George Floyd’s murder. Influential names took a knee. Corporations made vague statements. Cities painted “Black Lives Matter” on the ground—and then funded police departments with even more money.
Civil disobedience was never meant to build. It was meant to reveal. Once the system has nothing left to hide—it has nothing left to concede.
These so-called concessions are not victories. They are delays and distractions that ultimately pave the way to our destruction.
How Political Parties Hijack the Movement
One of the greatest dangers of civil disobedience today is how easily it gets absorbed—and redirected—by the very political forces that claim to support us.
Sometimes, mobilization is used to demobilize our movement.
The Democratic Party, in particular, has perfected the art of appearing on our side. When uprisings erupt, their politicians rush to the front lines—not to build with the people, but to pacify the people. They call for “peace.”
They do not call for Black liberation.
They use these symbolic gestures to capture the energy of the Black struggle, but not our pulse, and funnel it back into systems that maintain our suffering. These marches are not tools for power—they become tools for demobilization.
Visibility without victory. Statements without sovereignty. Elections instead of evolution.
We trade our righteous cause and rage for empty policy.
We trade direct action for voter registration drives.
We trade self-determination for photo ops and tokenism.
This is not support. It is infiltration and suppression. White guilt means appearing as a good person but not going the distance to change the conditions for good.
Malcolm Warned Us
Malcolm X saw this coming. He fought not only against white supremacy but against Black dependency on white politics. He was crystal clear:
"Politically, the American Negro is nothing but a football, and the white liberals control this mentally dead ball through tricks of tokenism: false promises of integration and civil rights. In this profitable game of deceiving and exploiting the political politician of the American Negro, those white liberals have the willing cooperation of the Negro civil rights leaders. These "leaders" sell out our people for just a few crumbs of token recognition and token gains. These "leaders" are satisfied with token victories and token progress because they themselves are nothing but token leaders."
Malcolm knew that our liberation could not come from aligning ourselves with parties whose power depends on keeping us controlled. That’s why he fought for Black independence—not just culturally, but politically.
"In America, there’s no such thing as Democrats and Republicans anymore. That’s antiquated. In America, you have liberals and conservatives. This is what the American political structure boils down to among Whites. The only people who are still living in the past and think in terms of “I’m a Democrat” or “I’m a Republican” is the American Negro."
What we need is not alignment with the Democrats or Republicans—we need Black political self-determination. We need parties, formations, and movements that exist for our people, by our people, and answer only to our people.
We’re Not Begging Anymore. We’re Building.
Dr. King began to shift before his assassination. He started to understand the need for economic justice/infrastructure, land ownership, and systemic change beyond protest. He founded the Poor People’s Campaign and focused on redistribution of wealth.
The system didn’t fear King when he marched—it feared him when he organized.
It didn’t kill him for preaching love—it killed him for demanding POWER.
The Liberation Movement is Choosing a New Strategy
We honor our ancestors who sat in, marched, and sacrificed. We hold that history close.
But we will not repeat strategies that no longer serve our survival.
The road to liberation today is not paved by protest—it’s built by infrastructure.
Malcolm X knew the call for Black Power was a global call. Our problem is your problem and your problem is our problem.
Land. Water. Food. Defense. Education. Culture. Technology. Trade. Controlled by us. For us. Across the diaspora.
That is what we’re building.
Civil disobedience made the world look, but looking isn’t building.
This is Part One of a three-part series. In Part Two, we will break down the difference between mobilization and organization—and why only one leads to lasting power.
Until then, remember:
We honor the protest—but we live in the power we build.
We’ve learned. We’ve watched. Now—we organize.
