Foundational Invocations

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angélica Maria Bernal
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
Tea Party ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Normative Authority ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
Constitutional Thought

This chapter examines appeals to the authority of original founding events, founding ideals, and Founding Fathers in contemporary constitutional democracies. It argues that these “foundational invocations” reveal a window into the unique, albeit underexamined function that foundings play: as a vehicle of persuasion and legitimation. It organizes this examination around two of the most influential visions of founding in the US tradition: the originalist, situated in the discourses of conservative social movements such as the Tea Party and in conservative constitutional thought; and the promissory, situated in the discourses of social movements such as the civil rights movement. Though they might appear radically dissimilar, this chapter illustrates how these two influential conceptualizations of founding together reveal a shared political foundationalism that conflates the normative authority of a regime for its de facto one, thus circumscribing radical change by obscuring the past and placing founding invocations and their actors beyond question.

The Great Divide

2020 ◽  
pp. 77-93
Author(s):  
Ray Brescia
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
Communications Technology ◽  
Colored People ◽  
Grassroots Groups ◽  
Two Generations ◽  
National Organizations ◽  
Do So

This chapter recounts the radical change in communications technology that helped launch many organizations that abandoned the translocal organizing structure because the most modern means of communication available to them—the computerized mailing list—made it easy for them to do so. Unlike the Civil Rights Movement—which was built on networks of cells of grassroots groups spread out through the country and coordinated, loosely, by national organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)—the new movements, for the most part, utilized the ability to engage in mass mailing to create national organizations divorced from grassroots networks. Mass mailing would then shape social movements for two generations and the next forty years. This forty-year period also saw two different phenomenon unfold: one socioeconomic and one social. There was both a dramatic increase in economic inequality as well as a decrease in generalized trust.

Civil Rights

Sociology ◽  
2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Cunningham ◽  
Nicole Fox
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
Social Life ◽  
The Us ◽  
Civil Rights Movements ◽  
Central Case ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Post Civil Rights

Unlike many standard sociological concepts, “civil rights” is rarely interrogated as a phenomenon sui generis or in relation to other categories of rights, and instead is typically invoked in reference to a range of political claims, statuses, entitlements, and outcomes. Though foundational accounts of citizenship situate the sources and boundaries of civil rights, by far the most frequent usage of the term is in relation to the US civil rights movement, which has served as the central case informing prevailing theories of social movements. The movement’s canonical status and sweeping impacts on political, economic, and social life has given rise to a loosely bounded conception of an associated era, with much scholarship focusing on the contours of racial discrimination and mobility in the “post-civil rights” decades that have followed. Another area of movement influence relates to the encoding of civil rights protections in legislation and court decisions. A particularly robust literature has engaged with the implementation and enforcement of various provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, as well as its impact on subsequent related legislation, such as the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act. The legacy of the movement is also evident in its influence on subsequent civil rights movements, both tactically and through their ability to advance “civil rights” claims in familiar and resonant ways. The unique and familiar character of the civil rights movement, then, has ensured that conceptions of civil rights remain prevalent within a variety of sociological literatures––from social movements, to organizations, gender, race and ethnicity, and the sociology of law––while perhaps paradoxically discouraging focused research on the definitional and political contours of the term itself.

Prohibition, Legalization, and Political Consumerism

2018 ◽  
pp. 740-769 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Bennett
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Drug Control ◽  
Psychoactive Substance ◽  
Political Consumerism ◽  
Control Laws ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us

Cannabis (marijuana) is the most commonly consumed, universally produced, and frequently trafficked psychoactive substance prohibited under international drug control laws. Yet, several countries have recently moved toward legalization. In these places, the legal status of cannabis is complex, especially because illegal markets persist. This chapter explores the ways in which a sector’s legal status interacts with political consumerism. The analysis draws on a case study of political consumerism in the US and Canadian cannabis markets over the past two decades as both countries moved toward legalization. It finds that the goals, tactics, and leadership of political consumerism activities changed as the sector’s legal status shifted. Thus prohibition, semilegalization, and new legality may present special challenges to political consumerism, such as silencing producers, confusing consumers, deterring social movements, and discouraging discourse about ethical issues. The chapter concludes that political consumerism and legal status may have deep import for one another.

Medium

2020 ◽  
pp. 13-36
Author(s):  
Ray Brescia
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Mass Movement ◽  
Printing Press ◽  
Communications Technology ◽  
Post Office ◽  
Abolitionist Movement

This chapter discusses the medium—the mode of communication a group uses to communicate and organize. It reviews the advent of the printing press, the post office, the telegraph, the transcontinental railroad, the telephone, the radio, and the television, revealing that with the emergence of each of these innovations, a mass movement or movements rose up in their wake. Communications technology, in the form of the steam printing press, combined with the reach of the postal system, helped spur abolitionist efforts. Indeed, just as the abolitionist movement was gaining strength, this new technology helped fuel the advocacy of the movement and strengthen its power and reach. The chapter explores this connection between communications technology and social movements in U.S. history, from the events leading up to the American Revolution through the successes of the civil rights movement.

National Review and the Changing Narrative of Civil Rights Memory 1968–2016

2019 ◽  
pp. 174-189
Author(s):  
Robert Greene
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Conservative Movement ◽  
National Review ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Black Freedom ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Constitution ◽  
Historical Memories ◽  
Martin Luther King

This chapter analyzes the National Review’s shifting narratives and historical memories of the contentious relationship between the modern conservative movement, Martin Luther King Jr., and the US civil rights movement. National Review writers largely opposed the civil rights movement up until the mid-1960s, casting Black freedom activists and their goals as threats to civilized order and the spirit of the US Constitution. Yet, the National Review would ultimately take on a leading role in reconsidering the conservative movement’s animosity toward King and civil rights—drawing parallels between conservative principles and civil rights claims, and even making fraught color-blind conservative claims to King’s legacy.

5. The iconic Socrates

2019 ◽  
pp. 103-114
Author(s):  
C. C. W. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Civil Disobedience ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
The Us ◽  
Intellectual Integrity

‘The iconic Socrates’ considers Socrates’ role as a gay icon and an icon for civil disobedience. In the Platonism revival of the Florentine Renaissance, the high-minded picture of Platonic/Socratic love focused on the spiritual and intellectual perfection of the beloved, but in an alternative ancient tradition Socrates was presented as a sexual enthusiast, with a penchant for attractive boys. The context of Socrates’ emergence as a major political icon of the 20th century was provided by the US civil rights movement and the anti-Vietnam War movement, but there is no evidence that Socrates ever actually espoused civil disobedience as a political ideology or performed any act of civil disobedience. Socrates remains a pioneer of systematic ethical thought and a paragon of moral and intellectual integrity.

The Science and Law of School Segregation and Diversity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger J.R. Levesque
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Ethnic Disparities ◽  
School Segregation ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
The Past ◽  
Legal Foundation ◽  
The Law ◽  
The One

The law does not square with people’s experiences of segregation and diversity. An empirical look at the legal system’s effectiveness in addressing school segregation reveals, from a practical perspective, that segregation persists and even surpasses levels before the civil rights movement. Yet, the legal system continues as though segregation is a thing of the past. Even more bizarre, the negative effects of racial and ethnic disparities in schooling are well documented, and the legal system compels itself to ignore much of them. To exacerbate matters, legal analysts increasingly interpret the law as a system that operates in a different world than the one documented by researchers who describe disparities and what could be done about them. For their part, researchers pervasively continue to document experiences without considering the legal system’s basic concerns. This book details the source of these gaps, evaluates their empirical and legal foundation, explains why they persist, and reveals what can be done about them.

The History of Personnel and Vocational Testing

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Zickar
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
World War I ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Reliability And Validity ◽  
The United States ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of ◽  
Vocational Testing

Personnel and vocational testing has made a huge impact in public and private organizations by helping organizations choose the best employees for a particular job (personnel testing) and helping individuals choose occupations for which they are best suited (vocational testing). The history of personnel and vocational testing is one in which scientific advances were influenced by historical and technological developments. The first systematic efforts at personnel and vocational testing began during World War I when the US military needed techniques to sort through a large number of applicants in a short amount of time. Techniques of psychological testing had just begun to be developed at around the turn of the 20th century and those techniques were quickly applied to the US military effort. After the war, intelligence and personality tests were used by business organizations to help choose applicants most likely to succeed in their organizations. In addition, when the Great Depression occurred, vocational interest tests were used by government organizations to help the unemployed choose occupations that they might best succeed in. The development of personnel and vocational tests was greatly influenced by the developing techniques of psychometric theory as well as general statistical theory. From the 1930s onward, significant advances in reliability and validity theory provided a framework for test developers to be able to develop tests and validate them. In addition, the civil rights movement within the United States, and particularly the Civil Rights Act of 1964, forced test developers to develop standards and procedures to justify test usage. This legislation and subsequent court cases ensured that psychologists would need to be involved deeply in personnel testing. Finally, testing in the 1990s onward was greatly influenced by technological advances. Computerization helped standardize administration and scoring of tests as well as opening up the possibility for multimedia item formats. The introduction of the internet and web-based testing also provided additional challenges and opportunities.

Which Bad News to Choose? The Influence of Race and Social Identity on Story Selections Within Negative News Contexts

2019 ◽  
Vol 97 (3) ◽  
pp. 644-662
Author(s):  
Lanier Frush Holt ◽  
Dustin Carnahan
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Racial Group ◽  
Bad News ◽  
Media Environment ◽  
The Past ◽  
Negative News ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Media Choices

This study provides a clearer understanding of how audience members’ race influences their media choices. It finds that in today’s overwhelmingly negative media environment, people prefer reading negative stories about persons in their own racial group over stories about racial out-group members. This suggests social movements seeking to change the attitudes of people of different races using media (e.g., Black Lives Matter) might not be as successful as those in the past (e.g., Civil Rights Movement). Today, people tend to ignore such news when there is other bad news that affects people in their own racial group.

scholarly journals The Meanings of Black Power: A Comparison of White and Black Interpretations of a Political Slogan

1970 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 367-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel D. Aberbach ◽  
Jack L. Walker
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Black Power ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Civil Rights Organizations ◽  
The Past ◽  
Black Protest ◽  
True Meaning ◽  
American Cities

Angry protests against racial discrimination were a prominent part of American public life during the 1960's. The decade opened with the sit-ins and freedom rides, continued through Birmingham, Selma, and the March on Washington, and closed with protests in hundreds of American cities, often punctuated by rioting and violence. During this troubled decade the rhetoric of protest became increasingly demanding, blanket charges of pervasive white racism and hostility were more common, and some blacks began to actively discourage whites from participating either in protest demonstrations or civil rights organizations. Nothing better symbolized the changing mood and style of black protest in America than recent changes in the movement's dominant symbols. Demonstrators who once shouted “freedom” as their rallying cry now were shouting “black power”—a much more provocative, challenging slogan.The larger and more diverse a political movement's constituency, the more vague and imprecise its unifying symbols and rallying cries are likely to be. A slogan like black power has no sharply defined meaning; it may excite many different emotions and may motivate individuals to express their loyalty or take action for almost contradictory reasons. As soon as Adam Clayton Powell and Stokely Carmichael began to use the phrase in 1966 it set off an acrimonious debate among black leaders over its true meaning. Initially it was a blunt and threatening battle cry meant to symbolize a break with the past tactics of the civil rights movement.

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