re: The authorities are cowards in Ferguson and elsewhere

Bull Connor and his ilk created what we have today. His SS style tactics turned public opinion in favor of the demonstrators. George Wallace became a symbol when he stood in the schoolhouse door that the movement used to great advantage.

Without the heavy handed oppression of the Jim Crow crowd, the inevitable rioting and violence in the inner cities would have been viewed much differently and a lot less favorably.

And maybe tactics used by todays race baiters are not tolerated by the public and the media. They would not be able to claim the moral high ground