Introduction
History is an endless process that is always evolving by all the events that people initiate or encounter. The direction humanity takes during a certain period in history depends on the leading tendencies and the movements those tendencies bring to life. People are the driving forces of change. If their collective social behavior deviates from the accepted norm, history moves forward providing a change in political and social spheres.
The Poor People’s Movement that originated in the 1960s and gathered thousands of people in the streets of Washington demanded economic equity for the poor of the USA. Due to the deviant behavior of the leaders and the participants of the protests and marches against the government’s policy, it issued severe threats to the authorities and destabilized the political situation in Washington. The reemergence of the movement in 2018 applied the legacy of the original Poor People’s Campaign for the change needed at present.
Therefore, despite the overall organizational failure of the campaign, the deviant methods of protests utilized by the participants of the Poor People’s Movements demonstrated people’s ability to unite and make political change in the country.
The original Poor People’s Movement
The Poor People’s Movement of the 1960s was a significant page in the history of Washington D. C. and the history of the USA in general. Its initiator, Martin Luther King, had the intention to gather many disadvantaged people from different parts of the country to aggravate the question of the poor population in the USA. The campaign, first introduced as the Washington Spring Project aimed at attracting the attention of the publicity and the government to the poverty in the country (Pearlman 26).
Since the March of Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, King’s efforts have gained some positive results in the form of civil rights and voting rights for the people of color. The success of the previous campaign and the overall favorable position of King among his supporters provided a solid basis for the next campaign. Brought together by Reverend Ralph Abernathy, the poor people of the USA supported the wave of protesting moods and went into the streets of Washington (Pearlman 24). This campaign gained the name of the Poor People’s Movement and intruded into the life of the country during May and June of 1968.
The Goals of the Original Poor People’s Campaign
The primary goals set by the organizers of the campaign provided a clear vision of the change they envisioned. This change was an urge for the poor minorities and people of color who survived without proper employment and income. The movement aimed to consolidate the poor and “disinherited … to demand the redress of their grievances … and to secure at least jobs and income for all” (Pearlman 26). The actions taken by the participants showed their disobedience to the rules and a wish to be heard by the authorities.
They established many tents in the government yard and called it Resurrection City. According to the initiators’ idea, the city had to become a demonstration of the “unity among a multi-ethnic coalition of poor people and would serve as a strategic launch pad for …civil disobedience” (Pearlman 26). Since the appropriate authorities entitled to support the protesting movements refused to allow the Poor People’s Movement’s marches, the protestors headed to Washington “to promote discord” (Pearlman 28). The activists intended to remain in the City dedicatedly participating in the marches until the authorities hear them.
The Legacy of the Original Poor People’s Campaign
The Poor People’s Movement as a social movement organization was more complicated in its approaches to addressing the pivotal questions than others due to the extreme methods of the participants’ message delivery. Such an informal organization lacked structural division and rules that caused the ultimate failure of the whole campaign (Staggenborg 38-39). Indeed, the reaction of the President and Congress was extremely unsupportive. The poverty issue resonated in society and attracted the attention of the nation. Also, the unique form of the movement threatened the Administration of the President and the FBI and led to an active intrusion of the police.
The assassination of King brought the campaign to a more active and severe stage when even those black people who were reluctant to participate in the movement joined the protests (Pearlman 28-29). The demonstrators faced police forces during the active stages of the action and as a result of violent clashes were suppressed, and the campaign was stopped.
No visible actions of the authorities were taken to respond to the demands of the protestors. According to Staggenborg, the disadvantaged and unemployed people participating in the movement “mobilized in response to opportunities but failed to keep their movements alive” (39).
Utilizing deviant methods of demonstrating their demands, the movement could not organizationally succeed. However, despite the official failure of the movement that ended in multiple arrests of the activists, it had a successful impact on human rights and justice thought in the USA. It “broke ground in uniting the poor across demographic divides” (Pearlman 38). Poor People’s Movement proved that active cooperation of like-minded people is possible and might have positive effects in the future.
The New Poor People’s Movement
The reemergence of the Poor People’s Movement in 2018 in the United States of America brought up the acute question of poverty in the country that needs to be addressed by the authorities. Incorporating the achievements of the past and discussing the legacy of the 1960s Poor People’s Movement, the organizers of the new campaign underline that after 50 years not much has changed concerning the impoverished population of minorities.
The organized protests activist Reverend William Barber led the movement referring to the achievements of King’s marches. However, the number of protestors is less than that of the original movement. According to the statements of the organizers, it was not their intention to commemorate the movement to Martin Luther King but to make it an action that has its own goals (Lang). Similar to the movement of the 1960s, the protestors engage in diverse activities aimed at the attraction of public attention to the problem of the poor minorities in the USA.
Human rights and more opportunities for the disadvantaged are the main demands of the organizers and their supporters. On the background of President Trump’s policy of zero tolerance for immigrants, the movement fights for the recognition of the issue of “poverty, racism and voter suppression” (Lang). Therefore, they call for the authorities’ reaction to their demand to benefit the poor by providing them with human rights for voting and employment.
Despite the relatively less number of protestors, the new Poor People’s Movement gained a lot of public attention. The participants marched in Washington, organized some gatherings and activities aimed at the popularization of their ideas. This wave of protests, as well as the initial one, also has a deviant character due to the police’s reaction to extreme actions (Lang). However, it does not stop the spreading of the activists’ beliefs which they are going to foster and deliver for as long as it takes to be heard.
Poor People’s Movement as a Deviance
The scholarly research of the question of deviance, its forms, and causes is evolving and touches on multiple spheres of human life. Deviance as a phenomenon lies in actions or beliefs that contradict the norms, rules, and laws that regulate the behavior of individuals on a particular territory or in a group (Inderbitzin et al. 3-4). Although this concept is perceived as a negative one, it emerges as a significant part of an activity in an organization of any kind. When applied to the case of the Poor People’s Movement, deviance in behavior was the only possible way to attract attention and to show the power people have when they need change.
According to the social control and social disorganization theories of deviance, the Poor People’s Campaign utilized unlawful actions because of the insufficient control within the system and due to the problematic state of the layer of the population in the country. Since the movement gained public attention and brought the problem of the poor to the discussion even without any responding actions from the authorities, the campaign is positive deviance. In both the original and the modern movements, extreme measures were the only possible way to deliver the demands of the protestors.
The Importance of Deviance in a Political Success
Deviance as a shift from the norms and laws of behavior occurs as a useful tool to succeed in political life. Undoubtedly, only positive deviance that is utilized to emphasize the acuteness of a problem might be successfully used in official political processes. Spanning boundaries in the long-established rules is capable of demonstrating the opportunities of a change as it happened in the case of the Poor People’s Movements.
The organizers of the campaigns consciously called for extreme actions and outrageous demonstrations to amplify the emergence of the problem they try to solve. Under such conditions, when a positive but radical change is in demand, deviance seems to be a tool that can provide political success. However, it is not a necessary measure and has to be utilized only in a situation of urgent need.
Conclusion
Summarizing the discussion, it should be stated that the crucial points in the history of a country cannot be passed without the consolidated actions of people. Under the circumstances when a wave of protests embraces the population, the social movement organizations retrieve all measures and tools possible to achieve the results they set before the campaign. As it happened during both the original and the new Poor People’s Movements, the protestors combined legal and deviant actions to fully and accurately demonstrate their vision of the problem and the demands for its resolution.
Despite the overall failure of the official recognition of the campaigns’ demands by the authorities, the positive deviation that the movements were based on, brought change to people’s perception of unity. The concept of positive deviation and its application to the political sphere is a perspective field of research and has to be addressed with regards to the acute social and political processes in the country.
Work Cited
Inderbitzin, Michelle. Deviance and Social Control: A Sociological Perspective. Sage Publications, 2016.
Lang, Marissa J. “50 Years Later, the New Poor People’s Campaign Lays out a Political Strategy Beyond its Washington Rally.” The Washington Post. 2018. Web.
Pearlman, Lauren. “More than a March: The Poor People’s Campaign in the District.” Washington History, vol. 26, no. 2, 2014, pp. 24-41.
Staggenborg, Suzanne. Social Movements. Oxford University Press, 2015.