the sociological study of social movements

The SociologicalStudy of

Social Movements

Social MovementsDefinitions of Key Concepts

Although there are many definitions of social movements, most conceptual efforts include the following elements:

1. collective or joint action; 2. change-oriented goals; 3. some degree of organization; 4. some degree of temporal continuity; and 5. some extra-institutional collective action, or at least a mixture

of extra-institutional (protesting in the streets) and institutional (political lobbying) activity.


Blending these elements together, we can define a social movement as

“a collectivity acting with some degree of organization and continuity either within or outside of institutional channels for the purpose of promoting or resisting change in the group, society, or world order of which it is a part.”

Adapted from Doug McAdam and David A. Snow, Social Movements:

Readings on Their Emergence, Mobilization, and Dynamics, 1997, p. xviii

Types of Social Movements

Sociologists classify social movements according to several variables - no one scheme is universally accepted

AlternativeSocial

Movement(Promise Keepers)

Degree of Change

Limited Radical

SpecificIndividuals

Everyone

Who isChanged

ReformativeSocial

Movement(NOW, SNCC, MADD)

RedemptiveSocial

Movement(AA)

TransformativeSocial

Movement(Millennial, Communist)

Types of Social Movements

Aldon Morris and Naomi Braine distinguish three types ofmovements:

1. Liberation Movements: populated by members of oppressed groups who draw on pre-existing “oppositional culture” andorganizations; i.e., black churches were a primary source of movement leadership and the participatory tradition and cultural forms of the Church were the backbone of the civil rights movement.

2. Equality-based Special Issue Movements: focus on specific issues that affect particular oppressed groups; i.e., the abortion rights movement

3. Social Responsibility Movements: challenge certain conditions that affect the general population; “suddenly imposedgrievances” such as nuclear accidents, oil spills,; MADD

Categories of People Involved in The Analysis of Social Movements

Constituents

DirectBeneficiaries

ConscienceConstituents

“Constituents” devote varyingamounts of either their time, energy,or material resources to the movement;“activists” vs. “mere supporters”

“Adherents” agree in principle withthe goals but have not contributedresources to the movement

Bystanders

Adherents

“Bystanders” are typically indifferentto the movement or ignorant of the issues involved.

Opponents “Opponents” are generally antagonisticto the goals and principles of the movement.

TARGETS


Social Movement Sector (SMS): The conceptual space or part of society that encompasses all social movements and social movement activity.

The SMS competes with other sectors - i.e., economy, polity, religion, education,family, entertainment/leisure - for individual’s time and material resources.

SOCIETY

PoliticalSector

EconomicSector

ReligiousSector

SocialMovement

Sector

EducationSector

FamilySector

LeisureSector


Social Movement Industry (SMI): The collectivity of all social movementorganizations that identify with and promote the goals of a particular set of issues and problems.

SOCIALMOVEMENT

SECTOR

SubstanceAbuse

LaborIssues

EnvironmentSocialJustice

Literacy Abortion Pornography


Social Movement Organization (SMO): A complex, formal organization that identifies with and promotes the goals of a particular social movement.

ENVIRONMENT

Green Peace Sierra ClubFriends ofThe Earth

AudubonSociety

Save theWhales

[SMI]

[SMOs]



ABORTION

NationalRight to

Life

Operation Rescue

PlannedParenthood

NationalAbortion

Rights ActionLeague

[SMI]

[SMOs]



SOCIALJUSTICE

SouthernChristian

LeadershipConference

StudentNon-Violent

CoordinatingCommittee

Congress ofRacial

Equality

Women’sRights

Organizations

NOW

LULACGay &

Lesbian Rights

SMISocial Justice

StudentNon-Violent

CoordinatingCommittee

Congress Of RacialEquality

SouthernChristian

LeadershipConference

MontgomeryImprovementAssociation

Civil Rights SMOsGay & Lesbian Rights SMOs

Women’s RightsSMOs

Local Movement Centers Other "pre-existing organizations" that exist for other reasons are often important players in social movements, including especially professional organizations, unions, political parties, interest groups, churches and other religious groups (both local congregations and national organizations), social clubs, colleges and universities (and sometimes high schools), and charitable foundations and organizations.

SMSSocial Movement Sector

SMISocial Justice

SMIEnvironment

543214321

Social Movement Sector (SMS)

Social Movement Industry (SMI)

1. The Cousteau Society2. Sierra Club3. Green Peace4. Friends of the Earth

1. Southern Christian Leadership Conference

2. Student Non-ViolentCoordinating Committee

3. Congress of Racial Equality4. Montgomery Improvement

Association5. National Organization of

Women

Social Movement Organization (SMO)

SMOs

Grievances;Structural

Strains;Precipitating

Events

StructuralOpportunities& Constraints

CulturalSolidarity;

Mechanisms & Processes

Statuses ofConstituents &

PotentialTargets

Tactics &

Strategies

Resources &Strength ofOpposition

SMOs &Other

Pre-existingOrganizations

Leaders

ResourceMobilization

FramingProcesses

Emergence,Dynamics, &Outcomes of

Social Movements

Leaders

Social Movement LeadersOrienting Questions

What social processes are involved in the emergence of leaders in social movements?

How do leaders gain legitimate authority in social movements once they attain that position?

What social factors– all apart from personality and leadership style – affect the likelihood that one or another person is elevated to that position?

Is leadership democratic, autocratic, charismatic?

Social Movement LeadersOrienting Questions

How are differences in opinion over goals, tactics, and overall strategy – which invariably occur – managed?

What are the different types of functional roles that leaders fill?

Are their different levels of leadership, each with specific goals and spheres of influence?

How does all this – and more – affect the emergence, dynamics, and outcomes of social movement processes?

Leaders

Leaders are critical to social movements: they inspire commitment, mobilize resources, create and recognize opportunities, devise strategiesframe demands, and influence outcomes.

Any approach to leadership in social movements must examine the actions of leaders within structural contexts that both limit and facilitate opportunities, recognize the different levels of leadership, and understand the various functional roles filled by different types of movement leaders at different stages in movement development.

Four ideal types of leadership tiers often exist within movements:

Formal Leaders Leadership Team Bridge Leaders Organizers

The first tier consists of leaders who occupy the top formal leadership positions. The formal leaders typically the most visible members and the spokesperson of any given movement – they provide the public face of the movement.

In addition to articulating the main positions of the movement, devising movement strategies, and rallying the movement base, successful leaders are able to capitalize on connections to elites in other sectors such as political parties, unions, and mass media and turn them into allies

Formal Leaders

Martin Luther King Elizabeth Cady StantonSusan B. Anthoney

Cesar Chavez

The second tier consists of those who constitute the immediate leadership team of formal leaders. Such leaders often occupy secondary formal positions within movements.

Social movement leaders in these two tiers tend to come from the educated middle and upper classes, are disproportionately male, and usually share the race or ethnicity of their supporters

Leadership Team

James FarmerCORE

Fred Shuttlesworth

SCLC

The third leadership tier consists of bridge leaders. Bridge leaders are those neighborhood and community organizers who mediate between top leadership and the vast bulk of followers. Such leaders also perform the bulk of a movement’s emotional work and may play dominant roles during periods of crisis and spontaneity. During the civil rights movement, many women who were previously active in churches and in community organizations became bridge leaders who connected other membersof the community to the movement.

Bridge Leaders

Septima Clark1898 - 1987

Ella Baker1903-1986

The fourth tier of leadership consists of those organizers who, in additionto building connections between members of the local movement and helping them develop organizations, also routinely engage in leadership activity.

Organizers

Bridge leaders and organizers typically learn “what works” through on the job hands-on experience. They affect movement success through their work within the movement, mobilizing the support necessary to carry out collective action tactics, which result in concrete gains for the movement.

Leaders: “Insiders” vs. “Outsiders”

Leaders who emerge from those groups most affected by the problem-situation – “insiders” – are likely to share the interests of these groups and to enjoy advantages in mobilizing their social bases that outsiders lack.

They are often rooted in the pre-existing institutional structures and culture of the movement group and enjoy legitimacy given their shared group membership and shared fate – Black ministers in the civil rights movement.

BUT

All “Insiders” Are Not Alike [basic structural fact]

Different types of leaders come out of different types of preexisting organizational structures. Leaders from different types of backgrounds – even when they share “insider” status – shape organizational structures in accordance with their previous experiences, thus influencing the mobilization, strategies, and outcomes of movements.

In the American women’s movement, for example, “older branch” leaders came out of experiences in traditional voluntary organizations, unions, and political parties with formalized structures, whereas “younger branch” feminists came from groups that shunned leaders and formal structures out of a desire for participatory democracy.

Schisms emerged as “older” feminists, stressing the impossibility of a truly leaderless, structureless group, argued that in the absence of a formal structure, an informal structure will develop with unaccountable leaders who are selected through friendship networks.

“Insiders” can also be “Outsiders”[basic structural fact]

Martin Luther King and the SCLC favored mobilizing the community around a particular campaign to capture national attention and, as a result, SCLC members stayed in communities for short periods of time

Bob Moses and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee believed that “each and every one of us can strike a blow for freedom,” and made certain that SNCC members remain for the long haul, looking todevelop local leadership and address the issues of concern to local people.

Social movement leaders drawn from outside of the challenging group are valuable because they may be anchored in social networks otherwise unavailable to the challenging group and they often bring fresh insights and analyses to the table from cultural sources outside the movement.

Especially relevant are collective action repertoires outsiders may have learned from other movements. Thus, the civil rights movement drew on leaders who had been active in the Communist, labor and peace movements.

“Outsiders”

Nevertheless, outside leaders often create problems by “taking over” leadership positions and creating animosity and jealousy, which can lead to disintegration and factionalism.

Even more important, if outsiders dominate the leadership process they can make poor strategic choices because of their lack of understanding of the challenging group, lower levels of motivation, and the likelihood that they will not be accountable to movement constituencies.

Leaders: “Insiders” vs. “Outsiders”

Research indicates that movements consisting of both “insiders” with links to constituencies and “outsiders” with normative or professional commitments, of leaders with strong and weak ties to constituencies, and leaders with diverse repertoires of collective action tend to be more successful. It appears that movements that employ leaders from the outside but make sure that they are not dominant numerically or strategically are likely to have a greater chance of success.

Tactics &

Strategies

Tactics and strategies will vary depending upon the immediate goal – i.e., attracting members and mobilizing resources, publicizing grievances to reach a national audience, confronting the perceived cause or those responsible for the grievance.

Tactics and Strategies

Tactics and strategies will change during the life-course of the movement as it matures.

Tactics and strategies will change in response to both local and national circumstances – i.e., past successes and failures of movement tactics and the response of the targeted group.

Tactics and strategies are affected by the structural constraints and opportunities of the situation – the rise and importance of mass media; the schism in the Democratic Party once President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act.

Tactics and Strategies

There will be times when leaders of different SMOs, sensitive to their local constituents and concerns, will advocate different tactics and strategies, causing strains and fractures in the larger movement - SCLC & SNCC.

Litigation

In the early days of the civil rights movement, litigation and lobbying for legislative change were the focus of civil rights efforts.

Litigation

Moore v. Dempsey, 1923

The Supreme Court interpreted the due process clause of the 14th Amendment to forbid criminal convictions obtained while howling mobs surrounded courthouses demanding that the defendant(s) be turned over for lynching.

Powell v. Alabama, 1932

The Supreme court ruled that the due process clause requires state appointment of counsel for indigent defendants in capital cases and overturned convictions where defense counsel had been appointed the morning of the trial.

Norris v. Alabama, 1935

The Supreme Court, invoking the equal protection clause, revised the rules that had previously made it nearly impossible to prove that blacks had been intentionally excluded from juries.

Litigation

Brown v. Mississippi, 1936

The Supreme Court construed the due process clause to forbid convictions based on confession extracted through torture.

Chambers v. Florida, 1940

Broadening the Brown decision, the Supreme Court overturns convictions of four young black defendants accused of murdering an elderly white man, holding that they were based on confessions obtained under circumstances that were inherently coercive.

Smith v. Allwright, 1944

The Supreme Court ruled that exclusion of African Americans from voting in Texas primary elections violates the Fifteenth Amendment.

Litigation

Morgan v. Virginia, 1946

The Supreme Court outlawed state requirements for segregated seating on interstate buses. [Led to the Freedom Rides]

Patton v. Mississippi, 1947

The Supreme Court ruled against strategies that excluded African Americans from criminal juries, and reverses a conviction obtained from one such jury.

Shelley v. Kraemer, 1948

Barrows v Jackson, 1953

In these cases the Supreme Court established that the federal Constitution prohibited state courts from enforcing racially restrictive covenants, either by attempting to bar the transfer of property in violation of the covenants or by awarding damages, if the transfer was permitted.

Litigation

Lloyd Gaines

After the University of Missouri refused to admit Lloyd Gaines to its law school, the Supreme Court invalidates state laws that required African-American students to attend out-of-state graduate schools rather than admit them to their states’ all-white facilities. The Court left open, however.the question of whether, if Missouri had a separate law school for African-Americans, the state could have fulfilled its constitutional requirements.

Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada (1938)

As a result, southern states quickly began to set up separate graduateprograms for minorities. The next goal for the NAACP was to prove thatthese hastily assembled programs could not possibly be equal to the longestablished programs thatexisted for white students.

Sipuel v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, 1948

The Supreme Court ruled that the state of Oklahoma must provide instruction for Blacks equal to that of whites. In order to comply, the state of Oklahoma created the Langston University School of Law, located at the state capital. Further litigation was necessary to prove that this law school was inferior to the University of Oklahoma law school. Finally, in 1949, Sipuel was admitted to the University of Oklahoma law school becoming the first African American woman to attend an all white law school in the South.

The law school gave her a chair marked "colored," and roped it off from the rest of the class. In addition, Sipuel had to eat in a separate chained-off

guarded area of the law school cafeteria.

The Supreme Court holds that an African-American student admitted to a formerly all-white graduate school could not be subjected to practices of segregation that interfered with meaningful classroom instruction and interaction with other students, such as making a student sit in the classroom doorway, isolated from the professor and other students.

McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, 1950

Herman Sweatt

The Supreme Court rules that a separate law school hastily established for black students to prevent their having to be admitted to the previously all-white University of Texas School of Law could not provide a legal education "equal" to that available to white students. The Court ordered the admission of Herman Marion Sweatt to the University of Texas Law School.

Sweatt v. Painter, 1950

Brown v. Board of Education, 1954

Legislation

May 4, 1918

June 1, 1918

May 29, 1920

http://www.musarium.com:16080/withoutsanctuary/main.html

http://womhist.binghamton.edu/lynch/intro.htm

Billie Holiday, “Strange Fruit” (1939)

Southern trees bear strange fruit,Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant South,The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,And the sudden smell of burning flesh!

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,For the sun to rot, for the tree to drop,Here is a strange and bitter crop.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964

The Voting Rights Act of 1965

Sit-ins[Nonviolent]

A group of Negro students from North Carolina A&T College,who were refused service at a luncheon counter reserved forwhite customers, staged a sit-down strike at the F.W.Woolworthstore in Greensboro. Ronald Martin, Robert Patterson andMark Martin are shown as they stayed seated throughout the day.The white woman at left came to the counter for lunch butdecided not to sit down. UPI Report

Greensboro, North Carolina Sit-in,February 1, 1960

Greensboro, North Carolina Sit-in, 1960

On the second day of the sit-in at the Woolworth's in Greensboro, Joseph McNeil and Franklin McCain are joined by William Smith and Clarence Henderson. Courtesy of the News and Record of Greensboro

Hundreds of students, civil rights organizations, churches, and members of the community joined in a six-month-long protest at the lunch counter and, later, organized an economic boycott of the store. Their defiance heightened many Americans' awareness of racial injustice and ultimately led to the desegregation of the F. W.Woolworth lunch counter on July 25, 1960.

By the end of 1960, nearly seventy thousand people participatedin sit-ins in 150 cities. Roughly three thousand six hundred peoplehad been arrested. At least 50 percent of those who participatedwere women.

Boycotts

Rosa Parks & the Montgomery, Alabama, Bus Boycott, 1955

E. D. Nixon & Jo Ann Robinson The Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955

E. D. Nixon & Rosa Parks

E. D. Nixon, a lifelong organizer with only athird grade education, was president of thelocal Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters,an organizer of the Montgomery’s Voter’sLeague, and president of Montgomery’s NAACP from 1939 to 1951.

Looking for a test case to attack bus segregation,Nixon - after rejecting two other possible cases - put his full weight behind Parks and convinced Rev. Martin Luther King, a new minister in town, to allow a meeting of community members andlocal ministers at his church.


Jo Ann Robinson1910 - 1992

In the years preceding the boycott, the most active and assertive Black civic group in Montgomery had been the Women’s Political Council (WPC), headed by Jo Ann Robinson, then a professor of English at Alabama State. Near the end of 1949, Robinson(while boarding a public bus) was humiliated by an abusive Montgomery City Lines bus driver, and she set out to use the WPC to target racial seating practices on Montgomery buses.

In May 1954, more than eighteen months before the arrest of Rosa Parks but just several days after news of the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, Robinson wrote to Montgomery'smayor in her capacity as WPC president, gently threatening a Black boycott of city buses if abuses were not curtailed.


Jo Ann Robinson1910 - 1992

Following Rosa Park’s arrest in December 1955, Robinson played a central role in the start of the protest by producing the leaflets that spread word of the boycott among the Black citizens of Montgomery. She became one of the most active board members of the Montgomery ImprovementAssociation, but she remained out of the limelight in order to protect herteaching position at Alabama State

The Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955

At first, the WPC called for a one-day boycott - on the day Parks was arraigned in court. That night, five thousand people attended a mass meeting, formed the MontgomeryImprovement Association (MIA) and voted to continue the boycott.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955

Black taxis made regularly scheduled stopsand charged black riders bus fare in orderto get them to work.

Many blacks - and some whites - who hadcars volunteered to drive people to and fromwork

Trying to break the boycott, the city outlawedthe carpools and ruled that taxis could notcharge cheap fares.

Ninety were arrested for their roles in the carpools.

E.D. Nixon’s house was bombed.

Although Rosa Parks' civil disobedience on a bus in 1955 galvanized the African American activist community into organizing a successful boycott of the Montgomery City bus system, four women — Aurelia Browder,Susie McDonald, Claudette Colvin and Mary Louise Smith — refused to yield their bus seats to White patrons months before Rosa Parks' actions on December 1, 1955.

Browder v. Gayle, 1956

These four women served as plaintiffs in the legal action challengingMontgomery's segregated public transportation system. It was their case — Browder v. Gayle — that a district court and, eventually, the U.S. SupremeCourt would use to declare city bus segregation laws unconstitutional, thereby ending Montgomery bus boycott.

The specific legal question before the court was whether the segregation of the Whites and Blacks on so-called "privately" owned buses operated by the City of Montgomery violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Browder v. Gayle, 1956

On June 19, 1956, the three-judge panel ruled that Montgomery segregation codes "deny and deprive plaintiffs and other Negro citizens similarly situated of the equal protection of the laws and due process of law secured by the Fourteenth Amendment."

The court essentially decided that the precedent of Brown v. Board of Education (1954) could be applied to Browder. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the decision in December 1956.

Text of flyer circulated by Montgomery Improvement Association following settlement of boycott

December 19, 1956

This is a historic week because segregation on buses has Now been declared unconstitutional. Within a few days the Supreme Court mandate will reach Montgomery and you will be re-boarding integrated buses. This places upon us all a tremendous responsibility of maintaining, in face of what could be some unpleasantness, a calm and loving dignity befitting good citizens and members of our Race. If there is violence in word or deed it must not be our people who commit it.

For your help and convenience the following suggestions are made. Will you read, study and memorize them so that our non-violentdetermination may not be endangered. First, some general suggestions:

Integrated Bus Suggestions

Integrated Bus Suggestions

1. Not all white people are opposed to integrated buses. Accept goodwill on the part of many.

2. The whole bus is now for the use of all people. Take a vacant seat.

3. Pray for guidance and commit yourself to complete non-violence in word and action as you enter the bus.

4. Demonstrate the calm dignity of our Montgomery people in your actions.

5. In all things observe ordinary rules of courtesy and good behavior.

6. Remember that this is not a victory for Negroes alone, but for all Montgomery and the South. Do not boast! Do not brag!

7. Be quiet but friendly; proud, but not arrogant; joyous, but not boistrous.

8. Be loving enough to absorb evil and understanding enough to turn an enemy into a friend.

1. The bus driver is in charge of the bus and has been instructed to obey the law. Assume that he will cooperate in helping you occupy any vacantseat.

2. Do not deliberately sit by a white person, unless there is no other seat.

3. In sitting down by a person, white or colored, say "May I" or "Pardon me" as you sit. This is a common courtesy.

4. If cursed, do not curse back. If pushed, do not push back. If struck, do not strike back, but evidence love and goodwill at all times.

5. In case of an incident, talk as little as possible, and always in a quiet tone. Do not get up from your seat! Report all serious incidents to the bus driver.

Now for some specific suggestions:

6. For the first few days try to get on the bus with a friend in whose non-violence you have confidence. You can uphold one another by glance or prayer.

7. If another person is being molested, do not arise to go to his defense, but pray for the oppressor and use moral and spiritual forces to carry on the struggle for justice.

8. According to your own ability and personality, do not be afraid to experiment with new and creative techniques for achieving reconciliation and social change.

9. If you feel you cannot take it, walk for another week or two. We have confidence in our people.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL. THE MONTGOMERY IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION The Rev. M. L. King, Jr., President

Now for some specific suggestions:

Economic Boycotts

Forcing ComplianceWith Federal Law

Eleven years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus, Irene Morgan made history with a similar act of defiance on a Greyhound bus traveling from Gloucester, Virginia, to Baltimore,

Maryland.

Tired and recovering from a miscarriage, Morgan boarded a bus in Gloucester and sat in the section reserved for blacks in the rear. A half-hour later, a young white couple boarded the bus and the driver ordered Morgan, and the black woman seated next to her holding an infant, to give up their seats to the white couple. When Morgan refused, she was dragged off the bus and arrested.

Irene MorganMorgan v. Virginia, 1946

Supreme Court outlaws state requirements for segregated seating on interstate buses.

Morgan later pleaded guilty to the charge of Resisting arrest, and was fined $100. But she refused to plead guilty to violating Virginia’s segregation law, giving her attorney, SpottswoodRobinson, III, the opportunity to argue that segregation laws unfairly impeded interstate commerce.

Irene MorganMorgan v. Virginia, 1946

Morgan was found guilty and fined $10. Robinson, later joined by the Legal Defense Fund’s chief legal counsel, Thurgood Marshall, appealed Morgan’s arrest and fine all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1946, the Court ruled 6-1 in Morgan’s favor in a landmark decision thatstruck down Jim Crow segregation in interstate transportation.

The Journey of Reconcilliation

The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was founded in 1942 by an interracial group of students in Chicago. The organization was initially co-led by white University of Chicago student George Houser and blackstudent James Farmer. Members of CORE had been deeply influenced by the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi and the nonviolent civil disobedience campaign that he used successfully against British rule in India. The students became convinced that the same methods could be employed by African Americans to obtain civil rights in America.

With few Southern states enforcing the Morgan decision, George Houser, Bayard Rustin and other leaders of the Congress of Racial Equalitydevise the idea of an interstate "Journey of Reconciliation" to the Upper South, in which whites and blacks would travel together,purposely violating local Jim Crow laws.

During the two-week period from April 9 to April 23, 1947, 16 men - 8white and 8 black - visited fifteen cities in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky. Arrests occurred on six occasions, with a total of twelve men arrested.


Members of the Journey of Reconciliation in 1947. Left to right: Worth Randle, Wallace Nelson, Ernest Bromley, James Peck, Igal Roodenko, Bayard Rustin, James Felmet, George Houser and Andrew Johnson.


In North Carolina, two of the African Americans, Bayard Rustin and Andrew Johnson, were found guilty of violating the state's Jim Crow bus statute and were sentenced to thirty days on a chain gang. However,Judge Henry Whitfield made it clear he found that behaviour of the white men even more objectionable. He told Igal Roodenko and Joseph Felmet:

"It's about time you Jews from New York learned that you can't come down her bringing your niggers with you to upset the customs of the South. Just to teach you a lesson, I gave yourblack boys thirty days, and I give you ninety."

Freedom Rides, 1961

Mass Marches&

Demonstrations[Mass Media]

The Silent Protest Parade, 1917

On July 28, 1917, in New York City, a silent parade was staged in protest of the East St. Louis, Illinois, massacre of July 2, 1917, as well as the recent lynchings in Waco, Texas, and Memphis, Tennessee. The march wasorganized by the NAACP, churchmen and other civic leaders to protest the violent events against African Americans around the country.

Children in the Silent Protest Parade, 1917

March on Washington, 1941

A. Philip Randolph, who had earlier founded theBlack newspaper the Messenger and had helpedorganize a union for black railroad porters, began organizing a March on Washington in 1941 to publicize demands that the federalgovernment end racial discrimination in thearmed services and in the hiring practices ofdefense contractors.

Fearful of the negative international publicityof a mass march of blacks on Washington, President Roosevelt met with Randolph andagreed to prohibit discrimination in warindustries and government positions inexchange for Randolph canceling the march.Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 andestablished the Fair Employment PracticesCommission.

Birmingham, Alabama, Police CommissionerEugene “Bull” Conner

In May of 1963, hundreds of schoolchildren and teenagers marched with the demonstrators to Kelly Ingram Park to protest segregation. In a move recorded by national and international news, Bull Connor released police dogs and fire hoses on the marchers. As the dogs tore the children's clothing and the fire hoses knocked them down, Connor arrested thousands of demonstrators.

March on Washington, 1963

Eighteen days later . . . .in Birmingham

Denise Carole Addie Mae CynthiaMcNair Robertson Collins Wesley

A full-scale voter-registration drive begins in Selma, Alabama. Hundreds of demonstrators are forcibly arrested by Sheriff Jim Clark.

January - February 1965

In nearby Marion, on February 18, a nighttime demonstration turned Violent when police and angry white citizens attacked protesters.While trying to rescue his injured grandfather, 26-year old JimmyLee Jackson was whipped by the police and then shot at close range.

Bloody SundayEdmund Pettus Bridge

Selma, AlabamaMay 7, 1965

King leads the second Selma march over the Pettus Bridge and then right back to Selma. That evening Rev. James Reeb, a white UnitarianMinister from Boston, is clubbed to death by three white men.

"Turnaround Tuesday”March 9, 1965

Under the protection of a federalized National Guard, the Selma toMontgomery march proceeds to the state capitol, where a rally of 50,000 people is held.

Selma to MontgomeryMarch 21 - 25

Voter RegistrationDrives

[Freedom Summer]

Paul Burney JohnsonGovernor of Mississippi, 1964 - 1968

In a speech delivered in 1964, GovernorJohnson said that the initials of the NAACP stood for “niggers, apes, alligators, coons, and possums.”

Samuel Bowers, Imperial Wizard of the Mississippi White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, called the Mississippi Freedom SummerProject as a “nigger-communist invasion,” a“crucifixion” of the “innocent people of God”instigated by “the savage blacks and theirCommunist masters.”

Bowers was convicted in 1998 of murder in the Jan. 10, 1966, fire bombing that mortally injured Vernon Dahmer Sr., who helped register blacks to vote. Four previous trials -- including two state murder trials in the 1960's -- let Bowers stroll free after all-white juries deadlocked

Samuel Bowers Imperial Wizard of the Mississippi White

Knights of the Ku Klux Klan

Training Workshops

Freedom Summer training conducted at the Western College for Women (now Miami University) in Oxford, Ohio

Freedom Schools

The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

That summer, more than 80,000 blacks registered and voted in separate MFDP elections to select 68 delegatesto represent Mississippi at the national Democraticconvention in Atlantic City.

Civil Rights Movement

the sociological study of social movements

Documents

social movement activity

social movementorganizations

liberation movements

civil rights movement

special issue movements

institutional channels

degree of organization

changeoriented goals