The compassion thing isn't even why nonviolence can be effective as a strategy.
It's to find contradictions and accelerate crises. The state is denying African Americans access to public institutions? Put yourself in the middle of those spaces and deny access to white people.
These cascading contradictions, coupled with the demonstrable threat more violent methods, are what have made nonviolent movements successful.
I stg, American public education has a lot of issues, but the way we teach the Civil Rights era is a fucking disaster