"I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all it ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light injustice must be exposed with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion, before it can be cured."

https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham....

Sibling comment has the context and, really, these are two different things. Letting a nasty forum stay open is not at all the same as protesting segregation.

>Letting a nasty forum stay open is not at all the same as protesting segregation.

You're right, heads is not tails but they are two sides of the same coin; they go hand in hand.

Dr. King's protests would not have had the influence they did if the nasty public reactions of the racists were effectively covered up and censored.

The bringing-out is itself a kind of context. That kind of critical/analytical context is far, far different from simply setting up a forum in a huge social media site where impressionable people sometimes congregate. It's like the difference between a biology lab where students perform dissection and a dirty, stinking, public restroom where people graffiti on the wall and poop in the urinals.