Excerpt: The Genius of the Civil Rights Movement: Can It Happen Again?

Morris, Aldon. [1995] 2005. "The Genius of the Civil Rights Movement: Can It Happen Again?". Pp. 397-403 in Understanding Society, 2nd ed., edited by Margaret L. Andersen, Kim Logio, and Howard Taylor. Belmont, CA: Thomson Learning, Inc.

African Americans have come a long way since their oppression under slavery, and much of their advancement is due to the efforts of black protesters during the Civil Rights movement. Reflecting on the lasting implications of slavery and subsequent Jim Crow laws, Morris proclaims that the legacy of discrimination lives on; noting the importance of wealth on socioeconomic status, he says that "it was the slave and Jim Crow regimes that prevented Blacks from acquiring wealth that could have been passed down to succeeding generations".

He asks how the Civil Rights movement could be so effective in toppling the hegemony of racial discrimination. Part of the answer lies in the volume of people mobilized; "Mass disruption generated power. That was the strategy of nonviolent direct action". Much of this power was drawn from church groups, voluntary associations, schools, etc. that foster a sense of community and helped to organize the grassroots movement. These oppressed blacks, considered inferior on all levels by the majority of white Americans, were able to apply direct, sustained disruption to American life and thus caused social change that inspired many other movements around the world.

The Civil Rights movement stands in contrast to prior theories of social movements, which held that they were "spontaneous, largely unstructured, and discontinuous with institutional and organizational behavior". As a result, all modern theories must consider the role of human agency and strategic action in achieving social change.

This excerpt provides an interesting (yet brief) examination of the Civil Rights movement and how it gained so much power, but little is said about the "genius" of the Civil Rights movement. It was well-structured, strategic, and powerful, but Morris says nothing of how it specifically stands apart from previous movements, such as that of independence which led to the American Revolution or the Christian movements of the first millennium in Rome.

Relevance: 3/5 (neutral)
Salience: 3/5 (neutral)

References:

• Oliver, Melvin, and Thomas E. Shapiro. 1995. Black Wealth/White Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial Inequality. New York: Routledge. - cited in agreement.
• Conley, Dalton. 1999. Being Black, Living in the Red: Race, Wealth, and Social Policy in America. Berkeley: University of California Press. - cited in agreement.
• Max Weber. - cited in agreement. "Max Weber defined power as the ability to realize one's will despite resistance".
  
• Bobo, L. 1997. "The Color Line, the Dilemma, and the Dream: Race Relations in America at the Close of the Twentieth Century". Pp. 32-55 in Civil Rights and Social Wrongs: Black-White Relations since World War II, edited by J. Higham. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press. - as an example.
  
• Rustin, Bayard. no date. Report on Poland. New York: A. Phillip Randolph Institute. - as an example.
• W.E.B. Du Bois - cited in agreement.