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Originally Posted by ratbastid
Well... He didn't. He came out of the dugout, pointed over the left-field wall, and hit a very respectable double. Tragically, he was taken out of the game before his next turn at bat. But the game's not over, and won't be for decades, if it ever is. But, he knew that would happen, too. I don't think he'd look at the current state of affairs in race relations--improved though they unquestionably are since his day--and say he "won".
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Sigh. This is what happens when I try to rewrite my post several times so as to make as coherent an argument as possible, and in doing so, leave out something I originally wrote. I mentioned MLK Jr.'s victory in civil rights, but I deleted, by mistake, my qualifier that there was much left to be done.
"Scholars tend to be disappointed that the civil rights movement did not succeed more. It did not make all white southerners renounce their racism—desegregate their hearts—or give up their economic privileges. […] the civil rights activists […] had larger goals in mind than mere destruction of legal segregation and legal disfranchisement. But living as they did in human history, the activists, like the Apostles, recognized they were lucky—blessed—to achieve anything at all in the little time they had left in a world ruled by sinners."
-- David Chappell, "A Stone of Hope : Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow"
Basically, Chappell believes that many of the religious black civil rights activists like MLK Jr., Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and others followed a prophetic tradition, where they could no longer count on gradual change, but must force change to happen in a sinner's world. They chose non-violence as their vehicle, and I agree with him and ratbastid that although they would still look to do more, they would also pride themselves on what they had accomplished. Perhaps they would not be content, for that may cause them to stop pushing farther ahead, but they woudl understand and appreciate the great changes they helped bring about.