[krapp]

He could trust that he would be vindicated by the justice system.

His belief that justice would someday inevitably prevail belied the injustice of his system. To the degree that any of what you suggest was true in the day, it wasn't true at all for blacks, less so for those who didn't 'keep their place'.

In this modern case, Edward Snowden is the beneficiary of far, far more privilege and opportunity for fairness from his own government than Martin Luther King could ever have hoped for. Just imagine what the discourse would be if Edward Snowden turned out to be Arabic, or Muslim, or went by a Muslim sounding name. If he fled to the wrong country they might already be picking smoking chunks of him off a cafe wall. There would be no debate in the media as to whether he was a 'hero' or 'traitor'.