How Protest Works - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/21/opinion/sunday/how-protest-works.html
When social scientists do uncover evidence of a movement’s influence, we have tended to focus on three main pathways by which movements gain power: cultural, disruptive and organizational. On its own, each pathway turns out to be limited in its effect. But movements that have managed to combine all three, such as the civil rights movement in the 1950s and ’60s, have had lasting impact.
How does a movement manage to combine cultural, disruptive and organizational power? In some cases, this is accomplished through a division of labor. For example, in the civil rights movement, prominent leaders linked the language of rights, the symbols and rituals of the black church, and the Gandhian approach to civil disobedience; student activists fueled disruption through direct-action protests; and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, with hundreds of local organizations and leaders across the country, challenged the powers supporting the status quo in their communities and through the courts.