You're misconstructing what "inside the system" means. What it really means is to infiltrate the institutions of power (government, military), to rise through t

You're misconstructing what "inside the system" means. What it really means is to infiltrate the institutions of power (government, military), to rise through the ranks and affect change from a position of power. You're constructing a whole other meaning that is supposed to describe protests "within the law and reasonable actions". MLK was not an insider. Rosa Parks was not an insider not even by your own definition: civil disobedience is literally the refusal to follow a given law. The civil rights movement (kind of) worked because 1) there was an implicit threat of violence (the Soviet Union fomenting unrest, riots, etc) and 2) there was a sizeable share of first-class citizens sympathetic to the movement, or that at least wouldn't approve of the necessary measures to effectively suppress it (again, violence).