Through analysis of mid-twentieth-century US civil rights protests, the paper illustrates the limitations and possibilities of “disobedient” actors in catalyzing structural social change. The capacity of disobedience to push structural change is predicated on several interrelated factors: the degree to which such disobedience falls within acceptable parameters of dissent—both the character of the disobedient actors and the nature of the act are relevant; the extent to which the disobedience attains public visibility, with moving or photographic documentation being the gold standard; and the nature of the rhetorical framing of the disobedience in public discourse. What has received less attention is the critical role of disobedient viewers. The paper posits that viewer sympathy for the activists or their cause, which is typically seen as a byproduct of a successful disobedient act, is insufficient for catalyzing structural change. I argue that for an act of protest to have a lasting impact, viewers from dominant groups need to engage in a kind of identificatory disobedience that establishes a new relationship between themselves, the activists, and the cause.