Introduction
Social movements are organized campaigns in support of a social goal of altering or prevention change of a society’s arrangement or principles. Social movements are formed by people who have a common agenda in society. People forming such groups form them spontaneously. Today, a number of factors have enabled social movements to thrive well, as they are freedom of expression, economic independence, and availability of information, and awareness of basic human rights.
Establishment of Southern Christian Leadership Conference
One of the social movements includes the one involving civil rights movements in the United States, Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The social movement was formed in 1957 by Dr. Martin Luther; the founding members were church ministers who met in Atlanta. Other members were the elite blacks in other professionalism like teachers, who spoke on behalf of the majority illiterate blacks. The group was formed to promote and coordinate non-violent acts in disorganizing the bus system in the south. The aim of the group was to ensure political, educational, social, and economic parity by abolishing racial discrimination (Stewart et al, 2007).
The group was first formed to muddle the bus system in the south since there was a lot of segregation. SCLC had a number of changes they were interested in creating. The group was interested in eliminating segregation in schools and advocated for schools for all and equal opportunity. They advocated for black people to register as voters to empower themselves in choosing their leaders. The group also supported other similar groups that had the same agenda.
The movement faced a lot of resistance in pursuance of its goals from the police and other organizations against blacks. Since the moment was church-based, few churches would associate with it because they feared attacks, bombings and withdrawal of financial aid. Snow et al, (2004) indicated that the movement also faced resistance from fellow civil rights movements because it advocated non-violent strategies in rolling out its activities. The social movement got challenged in recruiting new members among the black churches. Most religious leaders were for the idea that SCLC was supposed to focus on spreading the Gospel and helping the needy instead of focusing on social inadequacies.
The movement’s social actions involved establishment of citizenship schools. In these schools, the old people were taught in order to pass the voter registration test. They were also taught how to operate bank accounts, operate mail services and how to fill driver’s license forms. These schools also received some resistance may be informed of land disputes but SCLC managed to maintain the operations of the schools. However, the schools were not always teaching adult education but were surreptitiously teaching the old about human rights, democracy and political studies. The purpose was to create awareness for as many people as possible in order to have large masses for the civil rights movements.
SCLC’s activities
SCLC employed social actions to compel leaders who practiced segregation to stop. The actions were like the extensive protest in opposition to segregation in Albany. Others were protest campaigns in Birmingham. The Birmingham protest was a success as thousands of school children boycotted classes to go and join the campaign. There was a lot of police brutality and excessive use of force that led to public outrage. The federal government responded by dismantling hiring segregation and released Birmingham city’s protest inmates (Stewart et al, 2007).
Other social activities were marches; the marches in Washington were pushing for civil rights legislation. The marches were successful though they were feared they could result in violence that did not take place. Black protestors would often be assaulted by white groups. SCLC followers would go and use public facilities that were being used by the whites as a way of protesting against racial segregation (Snow et al, 2004).
Success of SCLC
Social movements in most cases have high rates of success when pushing for a valid change. SCLC was highly successful in pursuance of its agenda of eliminating segregation of blacks. Their success was marked by the enactment of the 1964 civil rights Act and several court rulings in the favor of the blacks.
Reference List
Snow, D. A., Soule, S.A. & Kriesi. H. (2004). The Blackwell companion to social movements. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell.
Stewart, C. J., Smith, C. A., & Denton R. E (2007). Persuasion and social movements. (5th Ed) Waveland Press.