The thing to keep in mind about comparisons to the civil rights era is that it was a learning experience for state power as well. Training has changed to avoid

The thing to keep in mind about comparisons to the civil rights era is that it was a learning experience for state power as well. Training has changed to avoid the sort of "righteous confrontation" king was capitalizing on. Propaganda is much more sophisticated now, dissipating and denigrating public support, portraying protestors as unruly criminals or unsympathetic radicals both before and after the protests. Not that they didn't try, and to some extent succeed, to do this with civil rights protests but they are much better at it now. Protest is as sophisticated a conflict as anything else, and tactics are not static but constantly changing on both sides. It's important to keep that in mind, and that also that king's own tactics were considered polarizing and unhelpful by the white mainstream of his time. Only in retrospect do we consider them noble and effective for his cause, but that doesn't mean they necessarily will be effective for other causes, against other tactics. A large amount changes to policing and police policy has been in direct response to the civil rights movement in the abstract. EG not about its goals and consequences per se, but how to preempt, discredit, and disperse public movements so that nothing of its size and power can emerge again, regardless of the motivating cause.