People with power almost invariably attended a history class or two sometime in their lives, and remember what can happen to the Marie Antoinette's and Nicolae Ceaușescu's of this world.

If you were in power, and you feared civil unrest, it would be in your best interest to establish civil disobedience as the most severe form of legitimate protest. The idea that dissidents should not use violence but should instead submit themselves to arrest is very convenient for those who already have power.

In public schools across America, civil rights activists who advocated non-violent civil disobedience are lionized, while civil rights activists who advocated for techniques that did not involve martyrdom are either ignored or vilified. The first are given credit for the relative success of the civil rights movement, while the role of the later is severely downplayed. I do not believe that this is an accident.