Darrell A. H. Miller (Duke University School of Law) has posted Estoppel by Nonviolence (Law and Contemporary Problems, Vol. 85) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
There are two traditions of political change in America, violent and non-violent; but one group—African Americans—have found the most success by using non-violence, even though they, as a group, have the most historical and moral justification to take freedom by force. But perhaps that’s not so bad. For in pursuing a successful political strategy committed to non-violence—despite every moral right to use violence—African Americans have delegitimized any lesser claim to force as a weapon in American politics. The blood of Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, Lamar Smith, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Viola Liuzzo have nourished the tree of liberty. They supplanted the tradition of John Locke. Because of them, non-violence sets the baseline for fundamental constitutional change in America.
