CRE 287- From Civil Rights To Racial Justice: Understanding African American Social Justice Movements

 From Civil Rights To Racial Justice: Understanding African American Social Justice Movements

                Comments from Dr. Alvin Tillery, Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University.

 

 

1.      Summer of 2020, the biggest protests for racial justice and civil rights in a generation

a.      Sparked by deaths of AA in police custody, shed light on systemic racism

2. What did the recent verdict of Derek Chauvin (guilty) have to say about racial equity in the U.S?

3.      How are current racial justice movements -such as BLM

a.      How do these fit within the broader history of U.S. civil rights movement

b.      How today’s efforts differ from past American racial justice initiatives.

4. Addressing racial justice and equity was the top priority for the Biden-Harris administration.

5.      Tillery is an AA who came of age in the shadow of the Civil Rights movement

a.      Really experienced integration in the U.S.

b.      In terms of neighborhood, bus stops, and a survivor of racial violence

                                                              i.      Survived lynching

                                                             ii.      His work as a social scientist has always been about trying to bolster tolerance in our society

                                                           iii.      How to find ways to help people just get along

6.      In 2016/17, he became concerned that America was going backward

a.      Back to Jim Crow America

7.      He does translational research and pedagogies about diversity, equity, and inclusion

a.      Translate that research to corporations, governments, and nonprofits

b.      Main programs run an executive education program on leading diversity, equity, and inclusion

c.      They also do polls -the CSDD poll

d.      \              major contributor to empirical research on BLM movement

8.      Why did he start this work, and why is America struggling with racial equity still in 2023

a.      We must understand the historical context

9.      The 1787 Constitution established America

10.  Established essentially a master-race democracy

a.      Created a racial dictatorship

b.      Had to be some sort of white person in order to fully exercise democratic rights in society

c.      To move freely in the labor force

d.      In the housing markets

e.      And participate in the system of justice administered in America

11.  Not until 1968, when President Johnson signed the Fourth Amendment to the charter of civil rights laws

a.      Civil Rights Act

b.      Voting Rights Act

c. Hart-Celler immigration reform act of 1965

                                                              i.      Resulted in the elimination of racial quotas

                                                             ii.      No longer prioritizing white persons in immigration and naturalization in this country

d.      The 1968 Fair Housing Act

12.  Collectively, these brought us to the first truly multiracial democracy

a.      That was 52 years ago

b. Two years before he was born

c.      This is where the first civil rights movement we associate with people like Dr. King, Rosa Parks, and Fannie Lou Hamer

                                                              i.      Classic Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s

1.      Bringing the collective power of activists, who mobilized the masses, and bore a partnership of powerful leaders like President Johnson (who sometimes was opposed to them) in order to bring about these changes in laws

2.      These laws were striking at the late 19^th and early 20^th century that sanctioned de jure or legal caste systems whereby blacks were accorded a lesser share of American life according to the laws

13.  George Floyd and the verdict of Derek Chauvin's murder trial

a.      Another very powerful black-led social movement

                                                              i. The BLM movement actually started in earnest in 2013

                                                             ii.      3 black women -Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi

1.      Posted the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on Twitter

2.      In response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the vigilante shooting death of Trayvon Martin

3.      The movement starts with the unjust killing of a young black person

4.      beginning to reap the benefits in terms of how it's impacting the structure of police brutality and extrajudicial killings concerning policing in America

                                                           iii.      BLM movement grew from social media

                                                           iv. Hashtag is one of the most utilized hashtags on Twitter

                                                             v.      tweeted in the order of 65-70 million times to this point

                                                           vi.      First wave of BLM protests started shortly thereafter

                                                         vii.      BLM became a rallying cry in places like New York City and Ferguson, Mo

1.      Summer of 2015

2.      Protesting the deaths of Eric Garner  who was =choked to death by a police officer

3. Supposedly for selling loose cigarettes

4. Michael Brown was shot in Ferguson, Missouri.

                                                        viii.      Estimates the first wave of BLM protests about 2,500 – 3,500 protests across the nation in two years between the first protest in Ferguson  and the 2016 election

b.      Trump era -consistent BLM protests

                                                              i.      Did not reach their zenith in terms of participation compared to the first wave until

1. After the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, and then the killing of George Floyd, televised after May 25

c.      New York Times and cell phone tracking estimated that the wave of protests started after May 25 through the end of the year, the largest mass movement in American history

                                                              i.      Between 7- 10 percent of Americans claim to have participated in Black Lives Matter protests since the murder of George Floyd murder

                                                             ii. An estimated 7,500 to 10,000 protests occurred in the second wave of BLM activism

                                                           iii.      Much more multiracial, more suburbs and rural areas participated

d.      95 to 97 percent of protests were non-violent

                                                              i.      That violence that did take place was staged by opponents of the movement

                                                             ii.      Done by white supremacist groups called the Boogaloo Bois in order to tarnish the movement with claims of violence

                                                           iii.      So the largest movement in American history was yet overwhelmingly peaceful and multiracial.

14.  First wave movements -were not following the standard playbook of AA activism set by the Civil Rights movement of 50s and 60s

a.      Which were all about changing the laws

b.      They would create disruptions, then quickly turn to negotiation with local leaders in order to achieve incremental gains toward the work of the movement

15.  The BLM was much more disruptive

a.      No centralized leadership

b.      Led by Big Six civil rights organizations

c.      Decentralized

d.      Much of the action and leadership is at the local level

e.      Most of the leaders’ names were unknown

16.  So many social movement scholars labeled BLM as a new kind of social movement

a.      About expression and disruption

b.      But with little impact on political or other outcomes

17.  Tillery’s research demonstrated that the BLM movement was much like the approaches of the Classic Civil Rights Movement

18.  In terms of messaging, Tillery and associates have looked at how the movement affected the behavior of whites, and what has been its electoral impact

19.  Overwhelmingly, blacks frame their movement in classically liberal terms

a.      Talk about individual rights

b.      Free of police violence and harm

c.      Right to expression

d.      Right to free movement

e. These demonstrated that the BLM movement in the second wave is channeling these basic values throughout its messaging.

20.  10 percent of the frames are about gender

a.      Feminist politics

b.      Leaders intentionally included women’s voices

c.      Transgender voices

d.      Which are not part of the classic Civil Rights Movement

21. The 1950s were incredibly repressive concerning both gender and LGBTQ+ identities

22. The BLM movement made a conscious effort to address these kinds of representational claims

a.      through the lens of individual rights in American society

23.  But the media represents a different image of the BLM movement

a.      Urging violence against police

b.      But does it really

24.  He found that the overwhelming majority of the tweets were urging people to register to vote

a.      Vote for specific candidates

b.      Proracial equity

c.      12 percent urged people to go out and protest

                                                              i.      More engaged in mainline political activism

                                                             ii.      They found zero tweets advocating violence against police or any state authorities in the U.S.

25.  Public opinion studies

a.      Online internet poll of 815 Blacks in 39 states and DC, September and Oct 2017

                                                              i.      81 percent of respondents viewed BLM as at least moderately effective

                                                             ii.      56 percent see it as effective for LGBTQ rights

                                                           iii.      63 % thought it was effective at protecting Americans from police brutality

                                                           iv.      58 % effective at protecting the rights of AA to vote

b.      So they are talking about voting and taking systemic actions

26.  What motivates blacks to participate in the movement

a.      You would think that Gender would be a positive driver of participation

                                                              i.      Instead, it was negative why

1.      Protests are incredibly dangerous

2.      Not just police targeting male protestors

b.      Also think that women take a greater role in organizing work, but this is not the case

27.  The older you are, the less likely you are to participate

28.  The higher the income and education levels, the less likely you are to participate

29.  So women, higher incomes, and educated people find different ways to support social movements

a.      So those who participate in the protests are in the bottom half of the income distribution

b.      As argued by Keenga-Yamahtta Tayler, the movement is about class dynamics

                                                              i. Working-class people revolting against their conditions

                                                             ii. Young Millennials are joining the movement

1.      They are suffering from incredible inequalities

2.      Which causes them to relate to the movement

3.       

c.      Most impactful for white Democrats in Georgia was the threat that they supported BLM

d. Chauvin's conviction demonstrated the impact of BLM

e.      Classic movement saw this all in one bucket

                                                              i.      Strip the Jim Crow laws

                                                             ii.      Mobilizing against police brutality in Selma

                                                           iii.      And register to vote

f.        But the Jury in Minneapolis is the result of 5 years of BLM movement activism

g.       Over 3,000 local protests

30.  Question of abolishing the police

a.      Abolished in only one city, Camden, New Jersey

b.      Found the police corrupt

c.      But then they immediately reconstituted the police

d.      Most blacks do not want to abolish the police

31.  What is the middle ground -

a.      Defunding the police

b.      Many believe that we are spending way too much on police

c.      In tight budgets like Chicago, paying out 15-30 million in settlements for police abuse hits their budget hard

d.      A lot of Americans, and whites as well, believe that we should be spending less money on police and more on other services.

e. The Democratic Party is missing an opportunity

                                                              i.      If BLM could recalibrate its argument to deal with these changes

32.  Millennials cite 3 major issues in  2022

a.      Climate change

b.      Racial equity

c.      And the economy