Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 A Continuum of Information
- 2 Measuring Information in Minority Protest
- 3 Viewing Minority Protest from the Hill
- 4 Knocking on the President’s Door
- 5 Appealing to an Unlikely Branch
- Conclusion
- Appendix A Defining Minority Political Protest
- Appendix B Study Description and Coding Across Multiple Institutions
- Appendix C Time Series Methods
- References
- Index
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 A Continuum of Information
- 2 Measuring Information in Minority Protest
- 3 Viewing Minority Protest from the Hill
- 4 Knocking on the President’s Door
- 5 Appealing to an Unlikely Branch
- Conclusion
- Appendix A Defining Minority Political Protest
- Appendix B Study Description and Coding Across Multiple Institutions
- Appendix C Time Series Methods
- References
- Index
Summary
On June 11, 1963, in a televised address from the Oval Office, President John F. Kennedy identified “a moral crisis” facing the United States:
The fires of frustration and discord are burning in every city, North and South, where legal remedies are not at hand. Redress is sought in the streets, in demonstrations, parades, and protests, which create tensions and threaten violence and threaten lives. We face, therefore, a moral crisis as a country and as a people. It cannot be met by repressive police action. It cannot be left to increased demonstrations in the streets. It cannot be quieted by token moves or talk. It is time to act in the Congress, in your State and local legislative body and, above all, in all of our daily lives.
(Kennedy 1964, 467)With these fiery words, Kennedy created a defining moment for minority protesters. In the most public of fashions, the president acknowledged the plight of racial minorities and vowed to take executive action. It was no coincidence that the president’s speech came on the heels of protests in Birmingham, Alabama, a city that had become a battleground for the civil rights movement earlier that year under the guidance of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. By May 2, the demonstrations in Birmingham had grown so large that police officers resorted to using school buses and vans to transport protesters to overfilled jails. These protest activities, referred to as “Project C” for “confrontation,” persisted for weeks and culminated in the infamous events of May 3, when the nation tuned into its television sets to see not disorderly adults being handcuffed, but teenagers cornered by police officers with trained canines and little girls huddled together to soften the unrelenting force of the water that was slamming their backs into concrete walls. The scene was disturbing.
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- Information
- The Political Power of ProtestMinority Activism and Shifts in Public Policy, pp. 1 - 18Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2013