That's the US judicial system. I could also pull examples from the legislative system.
Laws aren't just things that codify current practice, they can also be progressive in and of themselves.
All of them involved someone breaking the law on the books, and either being held accountable (e.g., Duke Power)—which I'm not sure is actual progress, though the passage of the law, which, in these examples, was usually a result of civil disobedience, might be—or having the law invalidated after the fact (e.g., Roe).
So I'm not sure how that supports progress without lawbreaking.
A) Breaking the law and then appealing to the judicial or legislative or executive for redress
B) Repeatedly breaking the law in pursuit of justice because it's inconvenient
The latter furthers dissolving the rule of law. The former supports it in an odd sort of way.
My point being that one of the great features of our government is that there are methods of changing things that do not involve breaking the law.
One of the most effective efforts for Civil Rights as a whole in the 1960s was increasing minority turnout to the ballots, as suddenly their interests had to be taken into account by those wishing to be elected.