Why do some social movements succeed while others fail to bring about social and political changes? This enduring puzzle has gained considerable attention in recent years. This study examines the dynamics and consequences of local campaigns to desegregate public accommodations in the U.S. South from 1960 to 1964. Many Southern cities experienced substantial desegregation of lunch counters, hotels, theaters and other establishments prior to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but many others did not. Although the broader movement pursued a wide range of goals, desegregation campaigns, like the well known Birmingham campaign, were the center of the Southern civil rights struggle and faced massive resistance. Results from this research may improve our understanding of social movements and their consequences.
This project has two primary goals: (1) to build a publically available dataset documenting the desegregation campaigns in approximately 75 Southern cities between 1960 and 1964 and (2) to use this dataset to test and extend prevailing theories of social movement impact. Some scholars argue that the characteristics of organizations, leaders, and resources and the strategies, tactics, and claims that movements use determine its impact. Others focus on characteristics of the broader community, arguing that more open political systems, powerful allies, and weak opposition facilitate movement success. Yet other scholars argue that movement impact depends on economic calculations, such as whether the costs of protest to businesses outweigh the costs of conceding.
This project seeks to explain the diffusion of protest, the growth of movement organizations, and the consequences of successful movement campaigns. By coding secondary historical accounts, the project will generate systematic and comparable profiles of these campaigns and the characteristics they share, including measures of protest, movement organizations and claims, interactions with political authorities and economic actors, and desegregation outcomes. Coding this large number of historical accounts also facilitates assessing alternative explanations of movement impact through comparison, performing statistical analysis not available for studies of one or a few cases, and generating a database useful for other scholars.
Broader Impacts Broader impacts of this project include the development of novel research strategies, and a public dataset of value to historians and social scientists. Scholars will be able to build on this data by incorporating other measures, extending the data to the period before 1960 or after 1964, and including additional cities. The project will culminate in articles in academic journals and a book intended for the broader audience concerned with the history of the civil rights struggle, social movements, and racial equality. Results may also deepen the general public?s understanding of the civil rights movement. The civil rights movement was a key turning point in US history, but popular understanding hinges on a small number of events. To advance this goal, the project will generate a website to disseminate profiles of desegregation campaigns useful for schools, libraries, museums, and the public. In addition, the project will facilitate training and mentorship of graduate students in sociology.
This project has two primary goals: (1) to build a dataset documenting the desegregation campaigns in approximately Southern cities between 1954 and 1964 and (2) to use this dataset to test and extend prevailing theories of social movement impact. The PI and graduate research assistants built an original dataset documenting the desegregation campaigns in Southern cities between 1954 and 1964 Using a customized data entry program for qualitative and quantitative, the characteristics for all organizations, individuals, public events, and campaigns in each city were tracked. The dataset documents movement activity in twenty-nine cities in twelve Southern states including 101 campaigns, 1,574 individuals, 1039 organizations, and approximately 4,452 events. This dataset provides unprecedented detail on the origins and development of the civil rights movement including shifts in protest tactics and response by local authorities. Preliminary analyses indicate that the sequencing of conflict processes is crucial in explaining the movement's impact. By contrast, scholars have focused on stable characteristics of conflict situations such as prior political alignments and resources of actors. Civil rights campaigns often generated new organizations and leaders, forged new allies, and created economic leverage through innovative tactics. Preliminary findings have been presented at academic conferences. This grant supported the first half of the project, and a subsequent NSF grant (SES-1323149) supports data collection, coding and analysis for the remaining cities in the South that experienced substantial civil rights activity Local civil rights campaigns emerged across the US South between 1954 and 1964 seeking the desegregation of public accommodations. The civil rights movement was a key turning point in US history, but popular understanding hinges on a small number of campaigns. This study provides a comprehensive database and analysis of these campaigns. Other researchers may extend the core dataset by developing measures prior to 1954 or following 1964. To facilitate the project’s broader impact, the study (with support from the follow-up grant) will culminate in a website to disseminate profiles of desegregation campaigns useful for schools, libraries, museums, and the public. In addition, the PI employed and mentored graduate research assistants who will be coauthors on subsequent publications. Thus, the project has facilitated training and mentorship of graduate students in historical methods and quantitative data analysis.
