Most of the times when people espouse this sentiment that activists need to learn to compromise it's very patronizing: civil rights activists are the most pragmatic types of people. When activists try to get policies, they do not just waltz up to the state office and say "don't treat us citizens like shit because that is morally wrong". If that worked racism wouldn't exist to begin with and the activists that petition governments know this. Instead, they always have launch multiple avenues of attacks using policies that seem tangentially (if that) related. Trying to paint any picture of "they just like to yell" is just disingenuous and a bit disgraceful.
Specifically, it isn't (perhaps I should not simply) saying "don't allow these companies to expand in this area because it would royally fuck the black community living there" (this is the message they will send to the community/media to get community support), but it's "there's an ecologically important species in this region and construction would endanger it" or "this community's founding is of historical significance and should be preserved", etc... (I use these examples because the most recent documentary that I watched was Come Hell or High Water )
Activists have to sacrifice their careers, health, and lifestyles in a never ending campaign to find obscure policies that could be bent to their cause, and it seems to me, that trying to teach them about pragmatism and compromise - when they already know it- is just fucked up.
