Hardly. The civil rights movement is an excellent example of civil opposition done peacefully and effectively. It helped that there were many strong leaders in that movement across the country. Right now the energy is chaotic and undirected, without a strong voice of leadership to act as both the vanguard of the protests as well as the negotiators of change.

The one that involved the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. which led to riots in several of the nation's cities that eventually (but directly) led to the Civil Rights Act of 1968 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_assassination_riots )?

I am not in favor of rioting/looting but historically, it has been proven effective in some cases to get changes made.

> The civil rights movement is an excellent example of civil opposition done peacefully and effectively

There were 150 riots in the USA between 1965 and 1968, when LBJ was gathering the votes for civil rights.

The Selma march involved police using attack dogs and water cannons are peaceful marchers. It's damned amazing that (perfectly justifiable) violence against police didn't break out. The tools police use now would (and do) make it far more damaging.

The civil rights movement had a substantial amount of violence and change only started to happen because there was a very serious threat of it escalating. Purely peaceful protesting has almost never worked and most of the examples people cite (India's independence, anti-apartheid etc.) include a large amount of historical revisionism.

Yep, both india and south africa had a huge looming background of potential (and actual) violence.

Nelson Mandela was literally a marxist terrorist, yet is often held up as some kind of ideal of non violent protest.