I often think that when people talk about peaceful protest, they use the broadness and ambiguity of the word “”“peaceful”“” to clamp down on any actual protest. The civil rights movement was non-violent, and if non-violence is your standard for peaceful, than it’s peaceful. Conservatives however see anything illegal happening in a protest, and even though there was lack of violence, will say “they did something illegal, therefore it isn’t peaceful”. Civil disobedience, that is illegally not following an unjust law, must be practiced for non-violent protest to be effective. Over the years conservatives have managed to make it seem as if the civil rights movement won by just passively picketing buildings.

By the way, It’s a matter of semantics sure, but sometimes, semantics can be very important, especially if you want to make a very specific point.