I looked up the American civil rights movement on Wikipedia. It said 
"The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was accompanied, or followed, by civil unrest and armed rebellion. The process was long and tenuous in many countries, and many of these movements did not fully achieve their goals although, the efforts of these movements did lead to improvements in the legal rights of previously oppressed groups of people."
In the movie-the Help-, how the African-american houseworkers fought against the whites were so impressing. They didn't use violence. They wrote a book about their real experience. That was smarter, and more powerful than using force to stop and pay back for the white people's terrible behaviour.