Blocking progress; I-93 protesters fail to note case histories.

Civil disobedience has a long pedigree in the United States, and can count many famous people among its practitioners, from Samuel Adams in the 1760s, Henry David Thoreau in the 1860s, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King in the 1960s.

We doubt that the activists who chose to shut down traffic on I-93 outside of Boston at the height of Thursday's rush hour are in any danger of joining such luminaries in the annals of American history.

Activists from the community group Black Lives Matter chained themselves together with plastic pipes and barrels on locations in Medford and Milton and brought traffic to a crawl. State police responded quickly and removed the protesters, arresting 29 people.

The protest, intended "to confront white complacency in the systematic oppression of black people in Boston,'' according to the activists' statement, had a rather different effect on Thursday. It outraged state police, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, and countless commuters, all of whom saw the action for what it was -- a dangerous and irresponsible stunt.

Indeed, we can think of few ways to alienate the general public from one's cause more quickly than to impede rush-hour traffic, which is aggravating enough on the best of days.

State Police Commander Col. Timothy Alben labeled the protester's actions "immature, irresponsible and reckless.''

Col. Alben is correct on all three counts, and the 29 protesters who were arrested should be prosecuted and punished accordingly.

The protesters had hoped, of course, to garner some public sympathy for their cause, and issued a statement naming some 20 victims of what they say is systematic police violence against minorities in Boston.

Their message will, of course, now be largely ignored by the public because of the means they chose to express it.

But the public should not ignore that list of names, nor turn away from an examination of the specific circumstances surrounding these deaths.

In case after case cited by the protesters, police officers either acted in self-defense, because their lives were threatened, or the safety of the public was at risk. In nearly every case, the deceased was armed with a knife or a gun, and had either threatened or assaulted someone.

The activists listed the names, but omitted even the most rudimentary facts in any of these deaths: Remis M. Andrews died after charging at police officers while wielding knives; Darryl Dookhran fired at and wounded a police officer, who returned fire, killing...