Signs of the Times: Protest in America
Lawrence Textile Strike of 1912
From Tunisia to Zucotti Park, 2011 was a year of change-making. Time magazine dubbed “the protester” its person-of-the-year, arguing that not since 1848 had citizen-activists overthrown as many entrenched regimes as they did last year. Maybe so, but was “the protester” of 163 years ago really equivalent to today’s activists? Or has protest itself morphed and evolved in the decades since?
In this episode, we’ll explore political protest in its American forms, and ask how the protest tactics we’re familiar with today came into being. From the Tea Party of 1773 to its contemporary namesake, how have protesters marketed their message to the larger world? What strategies have proven the most successful?
What most interests you about the history of protest in America? Post your comments, stories, and questions below. Or just hold up a really big sign outside our offices.
As a native Chicagoan it’s impossible not to cite the disastrous protests the Windy City has endured. The Haymarket Riot showed how a bomb thrown at police during a protest could lead to death and horrible injustice. The demonstrations during the 1968 DNC showed how a peaceful (if illegal) march could lead to a police riot and horrible injustice.
Though I’d love to hear these events mentioned in your program, the bulk of your time and attention really must go to the many essential civil rights protests.
QuoteWhat about asking people to call in and share stories of protests they participated in?
Quotei’m not sure if you would want to consider the act of being a conscientious objector as a form of protest, but if you do i would love to hear more about the quakers history of refusing military service particularly during the first world war. thanks for allowing my comment and great show guys!
QuoteI feel the 20th century guy must spend some time on the Seattle General Strike. A city shut down, but still functional for the residents of the city, is the first example of a modern protests success and ability to empower the people.
QuoteNot sure how this could be worked into the show but I came across this from a letter written by Engels in 1892 (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1892/letters/92_01_06.htm)
It really struck me how disparaging he was of the greenback party movement (calling it a “humbug”), seemingly because it was without cohesive theoretical foundations. To me, Engels comes across here as having no solidarity with or even respect for the radical populism of industrial and agrarian America.
Given his politics it is difficult to understand why. How is it that an advocate for the total inversion of property relations can see nothing praise-worthy in a movement to put money and banking under public control? Ever since reading the excerpt below I’ve been thinking a lot about the connection between theory-making and “change-making.” The Greenback party was a bigger deal than Engels was willing to admit. It was a partial precursor to the Populist party movement which obviously changed a lot about the state-individual relationship (and in ways that might even qualify as intermediate steps toward Marx’s & Engels’ classless society). Yet he sees the activist Americans of his day calling for economic democracy as deluded.
So a question to try and tie it all together: to what extent does anti-establishment activism rely on anti-establishment theory? Does the example of Engels and the Greenback Party speak to a consistent relationship between radical theorists and radical activists/politics?
Engels 1892 (see esp. last paragraph):
There is no place yet in America for a third party, I believe. The divergence of interests even in the same class group is so great in that tremendous area that wholly different groups and interests are represented in each of the two big parties, depending on the locality, and almost each particular section of the possessing class has its representatives in each of the two parties to a very large degree, though today big industry forms the core of the Republicans on the whole, just as the big landowners of the South form that of the Democrats. The apparent haphazardness of this jumbling together is what provides the splendid soil for the corruption and the plundering of the government that flourish there so beautifully. Only when the land — the public lands — is completely in the hands of the speculators, and settlement on the land thus becomes more and more difficult or falls prey to gouging — only then, I think, will the time come, with peaceful development, for a third party. Land is the basis of speculation, and the American speculative mania and speculative opportunity are the chief levers that hold the native-born worker in bondage to the bourgeoisie. Only when there is a generation of native- born workers that cannot expect anything from speculation any more will we have a solid foothold in America. But, of course, who can count on peaceful development in America! There are economic jumps over there, like the political ones in France — to be sure, they produce the same momentary retrogressions.
The small farmer and the petty bourgeois will hardly ever succeed in forming a strong party; they consist of elements that change too rapidly — the farmer is often a migratory farmer, farming two, three, and four farms in succession in different states and territories, immigration and bankruptcy promote the change in personnel, and economic dependence upon the creditor also hampers independence — but to make up for it they are a splendid element for politicians, who speculate on their discontent in order to sell them out to one of the big parties afterward.
The tenacity of the Yankees, who are even rehashing the Greenback humbug, is a result of their theoretical backwardness and their Anglo- Saxon contempt for all theory. They are punished for this by a superstitious belief in every philosophical and economic absurdity, by religious sectarianism, and by idiotic economic experiments, out of which, however, certain bourgeois cliques profit.
QuoteWhen talking about contemporary protest movements, I hope you’ll mention one very close to home – the Living Wage Campaign at UVA, which has been agitating for a living wage for all direct and contracted employees for more than fifteen years. While top administrative officials here make several hundred thousand dollars a year, many of the people who clean classrooms and offices, do construction, provide food, and do many other jobs make pitifully little – not even enough to afford basic necessities for themselves and their families, even while working full-time.
The campaign has engaged in multiple rallies and protests in the last decade, including a four-day sit-in in 2006, and there’s more to come this semester! Take a look at history in action.
QuoteIn your Protest show, you must include Kent State.
QuoteMost of the injured students had bullets enter from behind. One of the dead got hit walking by the confrontation on her way to class. Another was there to observe: he was in the ROTC and was laying on the ground on his stomach when he was shot and killed.
Kent State wouldn’t even use its complete name “Kent State” until years after the May 4, 1970 shooting. It went by: “Kent.” People who were in school and observed the shooting and other alums such as myself resented the name change and are gratified it was undone.
Many current students do not understand what happened on May 4 and have negative views of the students.
Also, the campus has a memorial for May 4 – not at the exact location and words on it are not accurate.
I am not an expert. But I did write a Letter to the Editor of the Kent Stater addressing current students that ran on the anniversary a few years back.
I would be happy to suggest sources to you.