Groups like Black Panthers and associates of Malcom X were arming up and rearing up to back up their wishes with violence. King certainly gets the credit for oratory influence, but I think a lot of the obsession on overrepresenting it is white washed non-violence 'protest and vote harder' nonsense that the history books like to push hardest when giving role models to the youth in schools. So people like King became elevated but omit the part that there was a very real looming rod waiting and the carrot King offered was only half of the equation.