Social movements essay

For a social movement to effectively challenge the status quo, they need to express their identity and allied claims within the boundaries of the orders in place (Polletta and Jasper, 284). This paper focuses on the expression of an allied identity of a social movement that is seen as revolutionary due to its repertoires of actions and claims in some parts of the world and seeks to determine whether social movements are effective and justified. The Civil Rights Movement This is a movement that was formed to fight for equal rights in the USA in the 1950s and 1960s (Gordon, 35). The civil war had brought the slave trade to an end, but the discrimination for the Africans was still in existence. The blacks underwent calamitous racial discrimination which was extreme in the South (Gordon, 35).

At the start of 1940, war-related activities had started to gain momentum, but still, the Blacks were given poor jobs and even discouraged from joining the military (Gordon, 36). Threats by the blacks to march to the headquarter and demand equal employment rights, the military, and other government opportunities were made open to all people. The blacks served in the war heroically despite experiencing discrimination and segregation during the military deployment. On 1st December 1955, Rosa Parks was found a seat at the Alabama bus while coming from work. The laws then required that the blacks sit in specified seats. Eisenhower administration wanted to show its dedication to the movement and therefore started pressuring the Congress to revise the laws on civil rights. The Civil Rights Act was signed into law on 9th September 1957 (“The Civil Rights Movement, 1963,” 273).

The law allowed prosecution of anybody found to block someone from voting. Although the blacks had made significant steps, they faced discrimination. A group of four students stood against discrimination in February 1960 when they refused Woolworth’s lunch counter without service. The protestors were badly tear-gassed and beaten by the police, and very many of them were injured. The Voting Rights Acts was signed into law by President Johnson on 6th August 1965 (Gordon, 39). The law eliminated the entire literacy test for the blacks. The poll taxes were also illegal according to this law. This was a major win for the Civil Rights Movements thus making all the struggles of equal rights a reality. The education from the organizers was critical in boosting the people’s understanding of the government and citizenship.

The Civil Rights Movement as well used the legislative reforms in the courts of law to challenge segregation laws. Challenging the segregation laws in court made the movement to appear non-violent, and thus the government had no chance of using force to break the movement (Skrentny, 245). The legislative reforms won the movement many achievements such as the Voting Rights Act. The methods used by the Civil Rights Movements to fight against segregation and denial of the right to vote for the blacks proved to be very effective. The demonstrators then began throwing firebombs and stones at the military officers which led to several police officers and protestors losing their lives and others injured. The security forces used brutal method to disperse the protestors among which were tear gases and batons.

On the following day, the government disrupted social media to avoid the spread of information on the ongoing protests across the nation. Twitter and Facebook were closed when the government realized that the protestors were using them to plan the protests. On January 29, the President answered the calls of the protestors to step down by announcing that he will dismiss the current government (Wahba, 2). It was a historical victorious win which was achieved in a very short period compared to other revolution. Thus the revolution was effective and justified. Strategies that were used by the Egyptian Revolution Just like the Civil Rights Movement, the Egyptian Revolution as well used non-violent means to force President Hosni Mubarak to resign. The Revolution made use of YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to arrange and mobilize the protestors (IRevolution).