Social Movement Analysis

There are two different perspectives that represent the consequences and tactical choices in the world of social movements, those two perspectives are: “resource mobilization” and “political process.” Both of these perspectives tend to have a limited focus and put most of their attention on tactics. This is limiting because they do not focus on their opponents. “Resource mobilization” (RM) and “Political Process” (PP) have big differences between them as well; the biggest difference between these is their beliefs on potential power of the social movements. Barkan has three different reasons for writing this article, the first being; he wants to show the importance of studying tactics of movements involving social movements that are of access
to the opponents. The second purpose of this article is to reshape the view of the civil rights protest. Barkan thinks by proving that the Southern elites could avoid all white violence by the proper choice in tactics. And the final purpose of this paper is Barkan wants to add to the argument of the RM-PP debate. He believes that the civil rights forces do not have enough power to win bigger successes alone. The Southern civil rights movements benefited some areas of the legal system and did not benefit others. It favored at the federal levels but at the state and local levels it served more as social control movement. This soon became a way for social control in the South to have civil rights protest. This also affected other parts of the criminal justice system, for example the police departments, there were arrests and arrest threats daily, and majority of these arrests would not have been an arrest outside of the South. All of these different issues stemmed from the civil rights protest. The protest campaigns began in 1955, the Montgomery protest began because they were waiting for a black person to get arrested that would make an impact and then they would start a bus boycott.
This respectable person was Rosa Parks, once she was arrested they began the bus boycott. Following that year in 1956 the mayor attempted to announce a policy called the “get though” policy and two days later Martin Luther King was arrested. By March of 1956 the bus station had lost over a million dollars because the blacks had boycotted it. In Georgia the first big campaign to desegregate was in 1961 and did not end until 1963. During this time there were over a thousand people arrested and there was little change that was done to the segregation problem. In order to understand all these movements, example the Albany Movement, there has to be some consideration given to the parts that the police, courts and prisons played in it, not just the higher legal systems
involvement. Martin Luther King was defeated in Albany but went on in 1963 to a victory in Birmingham. King continued to want to help the civil rights efforts; he thought that if he continued to put pressure on this it would eventually increase the chance of success. Protest continued all through out 1963, many people were arrested, once there was no more room left in the jail the child marched and they were not arrested. The strategy of this was for the most part sit-ins and huge marches protesting. The success of Birmingham gave way to other cities wanting to do the same thing but the attempts in Danville were not as successful. Major arrested with who bail amounts ended the protesting in Danville. There are many reasons the protests in Danville did not work like the ones in Birmingham did, one of those reasons is there were not as many participants in the Danville march as there was in the Birmingham march. And in contrast to the Birmingham march, Martin Luther King was only in Danville for a couple days where in Birmingham he was there a lot more. In 1965 there was the Selma campaign.
It stated in 1964 in July when black men were arrested for trying to register to vote. A judge three days later put out a law that made it so there could not be more than three people at a time in a public gathering. This made it so big groups of people could not meet. This is when the campaign started and by 1965 in the month of February there had been over three thousand arrests due to the marches. Selma is a good example of the method of white control. In Albany and Danville the legalistic method worked. In these SCLC campaigns legal means were also used. This article showed two different aspects of control of the civil rights protest. The first was the white resistance and the second was legalistic means of control. In order to understand the whole idea of the social movements in the South the understanding of the parts that everyone played has to be studied. The paper showed the opportunities the opponents have in the legal tactics involving social
movements.