History concepts and applications

Movements

Whether or not it was the direct intention of our forefathers, it has been the Bill of Rights that has allowed for the existence of various movements throughout U.S. history. The right to assembly, the right of free speech and the guarantee of a free press have allowed for the various movements to be tolerated, even when they represented but a small minority of society. Their existence has served as a safety valve to keep internal pressure from building and exploding.

Every movement --whether we are speaking of civil rights, anti-war, and progressive, as well as labor, anti-nuclear, prohibition, and suffrage -- moved from the fringe where its diehard constituents kept the flame burning, no matter the political climate, to the forefront through the building of coalitions and partnerships that coalesced with a common, usually homogenized sense of purpose. Movements in this country have not only developed to spread the gospel of new ideas but on occasions have developed in an effort to revitalize or salvage the status quo.

The civil rights movement, has been the one movement with largely the same mission statement since its conception with the abolitionists in the nineteenth century. Ironically, the two greatest threats to its existence occurred when its cause was co-opted by the government first with the end of slavery and then in the mid sixties when President Johnson picked up the chant of "We shall overcome." After the civil war, it had taken the movement nearly a century to regain its focus in challenging the status quo. Borrowing strategies from the labor movement, it has always relied on populist and grass roots energy to advocate and realize change.

The anti-war movements in this country have probably had the most tenuous grip, as except for the most determined pacifists, the ending of conscription at various times (another example of government co-opting a movement's ideals) has taken the wind out of its sails.