Social movements have been a permanent fixture of American politics since the antebellum era. Advocates for a particular cause have built broad coalitions with others who share a similar goal and then attempted to generate some sort of durable social and/or political change. Over the past decade, various social movements such as Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, and the Me-Too Movement have formed and demanded that longstanding racial, social, political, and economic inequalities and injustices in our society be addressed. What lessons can the history of social movements in the U.S. provide contemporary social movements on how to have an impact on the political system? Particularly, what strategies (i.e., using the legal system, lobbying Congress, protests, etc) have either helped or not helped past social movements generate some sort of social and/or political change? Discuss at least one social movement covered in this course and at least two strategies used by the social movements covered in this course when answering this question.
The main focus of the paper is the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. Discuss what strategies the Civil Rights Movement used to help generate social and/or political change
Strategies: nonviolent direct actions (sit-ins and freedom rides) challenged segregation in public accommodations, non violent protests/marches (1963 March on Washington), litigate Supreme Court (Brown v. Board of Education Verdict)
Towards the end of the paper, contextualize these strategies used by the Civil Rights Movement to the Black Lives Matter Movement. However, the main focus for the whole paper is the Civil Rights Movement.
What Ill be looking for:
History of social movements – generally, what lessons can we learn from them?
Lessons example = dont do this, you should do that, you should target this group, this is the best way to put pressure on government, etc.
Pretend someone is asking you for advice and theyve never taken a US history class. If you could summarize all the social movements youve learned about in class and say what the most important thing they did was, what would it be?
Specific
Choose ONE social movement (Civil Rights Movement) from US history that has been discussed in class
It cannot be one that was not discussed in class
It should only be one movement, not two or three
What two strategies did they use that made them successful/not successful
Your strategies should correlate directly with your lesson. What is it that they did that helped them be successful, which we should take forward as a lesson for ensuring success in modern social movements? OR what is it that they did that hindered/prevented (hurt) their success that we should take as a lesson to avoid failure in modern social movements?
Examples: using the legal system, lobbying Congress, protests, etc.
Choose one of the modern social movements (Black Lives Matter Movement) and talk about how they can apply the lesson and strategies
