U.S. Political Protest
Intersectionality Simultaneously Expressed
People have often asserted their rights through protest. Citizens live within an interlocking context of their race, gender, social class, and sexuality. These variables are often simultaneously expressed (Weber). When people protest over racial equality, then, many of those attending the marches and sit-ins might also be thinking of the equality of gender and class. Questions of gender equality, privacy rights, and freedom of choice segue into mobilization and action around sexual diversity and legal rights. It is often when coalitions of groups mobilize around an issue that protesters have the highest chances of success. Ad hoc, issue-specific coalitions, however, can break apart if not prepared to address differences between people and groups as well as their commonalities (Woliver, 2002, 1993).
Ranging from large-scale mass actions to daily acts of resistance, people assert their beliefs through protests. Fluid social movements are not easily categorized as having won or lost politically, but they often leave "a residue of reform" (Tarrow, p. 175), changes in political cultures, and networks of people with common interests who survive after a particular protest is over.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. 25th anniversary ed. Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.
Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Rev. 10th anniversary ed. New York: Routledge, 2000.
Costain, Anne N. Inviting Women's Rebellion: A Political Process Interpretation of the Women's Movement. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.
Freeman, Jo, and Victoria Johnson, eds. Waves of Protest: Social Movements since the Sixties. Lanham, Mass.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999.
Mansbridge, Jane, and Aldon Morris, eds. Oppositional Consciousness: The Subjective Roots of Social Protest. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.
Marquez, Benjamin. Constructing Identities in Mexican-American Political Organizations: Choosing Issues, Taking Sides. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003.
McAdam, Doug. Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930–1970. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982.
Montejano, David, ed. Chicano Politics and Society in the Late Twentieth Century. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999.
Piven, Frances Fox, and Richard A. Cloward. Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail. New York: Pantheon Books, 1977.
Shabecoff, Philip. A Fierce Green Fire: The American Environmental Movement. New York: Hill and Wang, 1993.
Sundquist, James L. Dynamics of the Party System: Alignment and Realignment of Political Parties in the United States. Rev. ed. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1983.
Tarrow, Sidney. Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics. 2nd ed. Cambridge, U.K., and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Vélez-Ibáñez, Carlos G., and Anna Sampaio, with Manolo González-Estay, eds. Transnational Latina/o Communities: Politics, Processes, and Cultures. Lanham, Mass.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002.
Weber, Lynn. Understanding Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality: A Conceptual Framework. Boston, Mass.: McGraw Hill, 2001.
Woliver, Laura R. From Outrage to Action: The Politics of Grass-Roots Dissent. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993.
——. The Political Geographies of Pregnancy. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002. Laura R. Woliver
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