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Why the Civil Rights Model Will Not Work for Occupy
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Dan Clore
May 18, 2012, 11:39:09 PM5/18/12
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News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
http://www.countercurrents.org/acosta100512.htm
Why The Civil Rights Model Will Not Work For Occupy
By Katherine M Acosta
10 May, 2012
The black civil rights movement of the 1950s and �60s is one of the most
studied and analyzed social movements in American history - with good
reason. After centuries of slavery, followed by another 90 years or so
of segregation, economic oppression, and political disenfranchisement,
African Americans managed to reverse some of the most egregious denials
of their civil rights in just a couple of decades.
By now, the movement has achieved near legendary status. Who among us
doesn't recall the iconic images of courageous nonviolent protesters
facing down the shocking violence that enforced the Southern caste
system? If we are not old enough to have seen the news reports back in
the day, we surely saw the images in documentary films shown at school
or on television.
For many Americans, the strategies and tactics of the early civil rights
era have become the gold standard by which later movements, strategies,
and tactics are judged. However, the successful template of one social
movement cannot be applied in assembly line fashion to every social
movement that follows. What worked for the black civil rights movement
(in the South � the strategy was less successful in the North ) will not
work for Occupy. This is due, in part, to a changed political and
economic environment, and in part to differing goals and values of the
two movements.
The strategy of the civil rights movement began with a legal agenda
pursued by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP), resulting in a number of Supreme Court decisions in the
1940s and 1950s affirming the civil rights of African Americans.
Activists then attempted to nonviolently assert those rights, knowing
that segregationists would respond with violence. The ensuing crisis
would compel the federal government to enforce rights upheld by the courts.
So, for example, the Supreme Court decision, Brown vs the Board of
Education (1954), which prohibited segregated public schools, prepared
the way for the integration of Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas in
1957. When the nine black students chosen to integrate Central High
arrived on the first day of school, they were met by an angry crowd and
denied entry by the Alabama National Guard under orders from Governor
Orval Faubus.
Ultimately, President Eisenhower sent the 101 st Airborne to protect the
students and compel the integration. �Mob rule cannot be allowed to
overrule the decisions of our courts,� said Eisenhower. That year, the
black students rode to school escorted by armed soldiers in jeeps in
front of and behind their vehicle. Once at school, a soldier was
assigned to each student and walked the students to their classes.
Nevertheless, the Little Rock Nine, as they were called, were taunted
and physically attacked by white students in places like restrooms and
gym class, where the soldiers did not follow them.
The Freedom Rides, begun in May of 1961, employed the same strategy.
The goal of the rides on interstate buses, initially organized by the
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), was to compel the federal government
to enforce two Supreme Court decisions ( Boynton v. Virginia (1960) and
Irene Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia (1946)) that banned segregated
interstate travel. James Farmer, then director of CORE, explains:
We decided the way to do it was to have an inter-racial group ride
through the south. This was not civil disobedience, really, because we
would be doing merely what the Supreme Court said we had a right to do�
We felt that we could then count upon the racists of the South to
create a crisis so that the federal government would be compelled to
enforce federal law. And that was the rationale for the Freedom Ride (
Eyes on the Prize , 1987).
The riders were met with savage violence in the Deep South . Outside
Anniston , Alabama , the lead bus was firebombed and the exits blocked.
A loud explosion scared off attackers, which allowed the riders to
escape the bus. However, they were then beaten by the mob, twelve were
hospitalized, and the bus was destroyed. The riders were later
evacuated from the hospital as staff feared for their safety from the
mob outside.
In Birmingham , despite advance information obtained by the FBI that was
�quite specific� ( Eyes on the Prize, 1987) about the planned attack on
riders, both the FBI and the local police stood down. Freedom Riders
were brutally beaten with baseball bats, pipes, and bicycle chains by a
mob organized by the Ku Klux Klan.
Remarkably, Attorney General Robert Kennedy called for �restraint� � not
from the Klan and white racists, but from the Freedom Riders. When
SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) got involved and it
became clear the rides would continue, Kennedy demanded protection for
the riders from Alabama governor John Patterson. If Patterson would
not provide it, Kennedy announced, the federal government would intervene.
The governor appeared to relent and provide protection for the bus
leaving Birmingham for Montgomery . But about 40 miles outside of
Montgomery , the squad cars and plane disappeared. A vicious mob
attacked the riders as they got off the bus. Freedom Rider Frederick
Leonard recalled attacks with sticks and bricks and shouts to �Kill the
niggers.� Some riders, including James Zwerg, the first off the bus,
were severely beaten. According to Leonard, Zwerg and others were
�damaged for life� ( Eyes on the Prize , 1987).
In Mississippi , riders were met only by police, who herded them off the
buses, through the bus station waiting rooms, out the back door, and
into paddy wagons. Robert Kennedy had made a deal with local officials:
They would see to it that there was no violence and the federal
government would not enforce the Supreme Court decision on segregation
and interstate travel. Consequently, the riders were not attacked by
mobs, but were left to the mercy of local judges. They were sentenced
to 60 days in a maximum security penitentiary by a judge who literally
turned his back on the riders' lawyer in court and faced the wall. That
summer Robert Kennedy at last petitioned the Interstate Commerce
Commission to issue regulations banning segregation, and the ICC complied.
Success took longer to achieve where court decisions and extreme
violence perpetrated by segregationists against activists could not be
depended upon to force federal action. The Montgomery bus boycott
(1955-56) lasted just over a year. Although the Supreme Court had
overturned segregation in interstate travel, southern bus companies
circumvented the law instituting local regulations. As black citizens of
Montgomery , Alabama , led by Martin Luther King, Jr., refused to ride
the buses until they were desegregated, the NAACP filed suit in federal
court. The bus companies were hit hard by the boycott, but they refused
to give in until the Supreme Court heard the case filed by the NAACP and
ruled bus segregation unconstitutional.
In Albany , Georgia (1961), the strategy broke down entirely. Invited
by locals to help organize against segregation, SNCC challenged the
system in bus stations, libraries, schools, and movie theatres. But
Police Chief Laurie Pritchett had read Dr. King's book and understood
the strategy of drawing out violence and filling up jails. He prevented
violence against the demonstrators and arranged for jails in surrounding
areas to accept arrestees. Meanwhile, the city filed suit in federal
court requesting a restraining order to stop the demonstrations.
Stymied, and with hundreds of local activists in jail, black leaders
invited Dr. King to help out. King had other commitments, but spent
some time in Albany giving speeches and leading marches. After almost
nine months of action, a federal judge sided with the city, and issued
the restraining order. Coretta Scott King explains the dilemma:
When the federal courts started ruling against us, that created a
whole different thing in terms of what strategy do you use now?
Because, up to that point, Martin had been willing to break state laws
that were unjust laws. And our ally was the federal judiciary. So, if
we would take our case to the federal court, and the court ruled against
us, what recourse did we have? ( Eyes On the Prize , 1987).
King asked President Kennedy to intervene, but he declined. Defeated,
King left Albany . (SNCC, however, remained to carry on the fight).
The strategy of some of the most famous actions of the civil rights era
depended upon favorable decisions from the federal judiciary and the
willingness of the federal government to exert its power � backed by
violence, as is the power of all governments � to enforce those
decisions. Note also that the activists' goal of exposing the violence
that enforced the Southern caste system was intended primarily to force
a confrontation between the federal and state governments and
secondarily to appeal to Northern and international supporters.
The notion, further developed by Gene Sharp, that violence inflicted on
nonviolent protesters will eventually win the hearts and minds of
individual civil servants, police officers, and others who uphold the
system, and that those individuals will then withdraw their cooperation
with the system, thereby enabling a victory for the activists, quickly
went out the window. Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth (SCLC) explained in a
discussion of the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott:
We thought we could shame America � But you can't shame
segregation� Rattlesnakes don't commit suicide. Ball teams don't strike
themselves out. You've got to put �em out ( Eyes on the Prize , 1987).
Occupy cannot employ a strategy similar to that of the civil rights
movement for a number of reasons. To begin with, the focus of the
Occupy movement is corporate power � the economic, political, and social
inequality it creates, as well as the destruction of the environment it
perpetrates. Supreme Court decisions in recent years increasingly favor
corporations over individual citizens. The most egregious of these is
the 2010 Citizens United decision asserting first amendment rights for
corporations and thereby banning limits on their campaign contributions.
Indeed, the Supreme Court increasingly appears unwilling to uphold even
basic civil rights. Witness the recent decision allowing police to
strip search citizens arrested for any offense, no matter how minor � a
practice banned by international human rights treaties. The Court has
also signaled that it may uphold portions of Arizona 's controversial
immigration law; in particular, the requirement that police officers
check the immigration status of anybody who looks like they might be an
illegal immigrant.
With or without favorable court decisions, it's a pretty safe bet that
the Obama administration will not be sending in the 101 st Airborne to
protect us from corporate malfeasance anytime soon � or even to protect
Occupiers against the violence of local police. A more likely scenario
is that the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and federal law
enforcement worked with local officials and law enforcement, suggesting
tactics and offering advice that resulted in a semi-coordinated and
brutal crackdown on encampments late last year.
Even if the contemporary political climate was favorable to a
legislative agenda enforced by the federal government, it is unlikely
that Occupy would pursue that strategy. Appealing for concessions from
a higher authority is not consistent with the overlapping values and
goals of horizontalism and anarchism that shape the Occupy movement.
Horizontalism, as Marina Sitrin explains , involves a concept of power
as �something we create together� It's not about asking, or demanding
of a government or an institutional power.� It's a way of relating to
one another, as equals, rather than according to positions in a social
hierarchy.
Horizontalism, or horizontalidad , emerged in Argentina , after that
country's 2001 economic crisis. People gathered in the streets, at
first banging pots and pans and generally registering protest.
Eventually, taking their cue from the landless movement in Brazil ,
which organized around the slogan, Occupy, Resist, Produce ,
Argentineans �recuperated,� or reclaimed workplaces such as factories,
schools, and clinics and collectively managed them. Similarly,
anarchism envisions an ideal society organized voluntarily and
cooperatively, with no one having power over another. The bottom-up
organizing principle of Occupy, then, is inconsistent with appeals to a
higher power.
In their classic text, Poor People's Movements (1977), Frances Fox Piven
and Richard Cloward argue that opportunities for insurgencies to emerge
are not available most of the time, and when they are, those
insurgencies are shaped by contemporary social conditions. In this
view, both the civil rights movement and Occupy were and are shaped by
the historical moment in which they appeared. I admire the veterans of
the civil rights movement and what they were able to achieve.
Contemporary economic and political conditions preclude that strategy
for Occupy, but at the same time present different, and in my view, more
exciting opportunities, for social change. The possibility of relating
to one another in a more egalitarian way, of empowering people rather
than seeking relief from a higher power, and of, as Noam Chomsky says ,
working toward a different way of living "not based on maximizing
consumer goods, but on maximizing values that are important for life,"
is deeply appealing. Occupy is the movement for our time � and I am
deeply grateful to all of those on the front lines.
Katherine M Acosta is freelance writer currently based in Madison,
Wisconsin. Contact her at kacosta at undisciplinedphd dot com. Her
blog is UndisciplinedPhD .
--
Dan Clore
New book: _Weird Words: A Lovecraftian Lexicon_:
http://tinyurl.com/yd3bxkw
My collected fiction: _The Unspeakable and Others_
http://tinyurl.com/3tyj9cq
Lord We�rdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Skipper: Professor, will you tell these people who is
in charge on this island?
Professor: Why, no one.
Skipper: No one?
Thurston Howell III: No one? Good heavens, this is anarchy!
-- _Gilligan's Island_, episode #6, "President Gilligan"
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
http://www.countercurrents.org/acosta100512.htm
Why The Civil Rights Model Will Not Work For Occupy
By Katherine M Acosta
10 May, 2012
The black civil rights movement of the 1950s and �60s is one of the most
studied and analyzed social movements in American history - with good
reason. After centuries of slavery, followed by another 90 years or so
of segregation, economic oppression, and political disenfranchisement,
African Americans managed to reverse some of the most egregious denials
of their civil rights in just a couple of decades.
By now, the movement has achieved near legendary status. Who among us
doesn't recall the iconic images of courageous nonviolent protesters
facing down the shocking violence that enforced the Southern caste
system? If we are not old enough to have seen the news reports back in
the day, we surely saw the images in documentary films shown at school
or on television.
For many Americans, the strategies and tactics of the early civil rights
era have become the gold standard by which later movements, strategies,
and tactics are judged. However, the successful template of one social
movement cannot be applied in assembly line fashion to every social
movement that follows. What worked for the black civil rights movement
(in the South � the strategy was less successful in the North ) will not
work for Occupy. This is due, in part, to a changed political and
economic environment, and in part to differing goals and values of the
two movements.
The strategy of the civil rights movement began with a legal agenda
pursued by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP), resulting in a number of Supreme Court decisions in the
1940s and 1950s affirming the civil rights of African Americans.
Activists then attempted to nonviolently assert those rights, knowing
that segregationists would respond with violence. The ensuing crisis
would compel the federal government to enforce rights upheld by the courts.
So, for example, the Supreme Court decision, Brown vs the Board of
Education (1954), which prohibited segregated public schools, prepared
the way for the integration of Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas in
1957. When the nine black students chosen to integrate Central High
arrived on the first day of school, they were met by an angry crowd and
denied entry by the Alabama National Guard under orders from Governor
Orval Faubus.
Ultimately, President Eisenhower sent the 101 st Airborne to protect the
students and compel the integration. �Mob rule cannot be allowed to
overrule the decisions of our courts,� said Eisenhower. That year, the
black students rode to school escorted by armed soldiers in jeeps in
front of and behind their vehicle. Once at school, a soldier was
assigned to each student and walked the students to their classes.
Nevertheless, the Little Rock Nine, as they were called, were taunted
and physically attacked by white students in places like restrooms and
gym class, where the soldiers did not follow them.
The Freedom Rides, begun in May of 1961, employed the same strategy.
The goal of the rides on interstate buses, initially organized by the
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), was to compel the federal government
to enforce two Supreme Court decisions ( Boynton v. Virginia (1960) and
Irene Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia (1946)) that banned segregated
interstate travel. James Farmer, then director of CORE, explains:
We decided the way to do it was to have an inter-racial group ride
through the south. This was not civil disobedience, really, because we
would be doing merely what the Supreme Court said we had a right to do�
We felt that we could then count upon the racists of the South to
create a crisis so that the federal government would be compelled to
enforce federal law. And that was the rationale for the Freedom Ride (
Eyes on the Prize , 1987).
The riders were met with savage violence in the Deep South . Outside
Anniston , Alabama , the lead bus was firebombed and the exits blocked.
A loud explosion scared off attackers, which allowed the riders to
escape the bus. However, they were then beaten by the mob, twelve were
hospitalized, and the bus was destroyed. The riders were later
evacuated from the hospital as staff feared for their safety from the
mob outside.
In Birmingham , despite advance information obtained by the FBI that was
�quite specific� ( Eyes on the Prize, 1987) about the planned attack on
riders, both the FBI and the local police stood down. Freedom Riders
were brutally beaten with baseball bats, pipes, and bicycle chains by a
mob organized by the Ku Klux Klan.
Remarkably, Attorney General Robert Kennedy called for �restraint� � not
from the Klan and white racists, but from the Freedom Riders. When
SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) got involved and it
became clear the rides would continue, Kennedy demanded protection for
the riders from Alabama governor John Patterson. If Patterson would
not provide it, Kennedy announced, the federal government would intervene.
The governor appeared to relent and provide protection for the bus
leaving Birmingham for Montgomery . But about 40 miles outside of
Montgomery , the squad cars and plane disappeared. A vicious mob
attacked the riders as they got off the bus. Freedom Rider Frederick
Leonard recalled attacks with sticks and bricks and shouts to �Kill the
niggers.� Some riders, including James Zwerg, the first off the bus,
were severely beaten. According to Leonard, Zwerg and others were
�damaged for life� ( Eyes on the Prize , 1987).
In Mississippi , riders were met only by police, who herded them off the
buses, through the bus station waiting rooms, out the back door, and
into paddy wagons. Robert Kennedy had made a deal with local officials:
They would see to it that there was no violence and the federal
government would not enforce the Supreme Court decision on segregation
and interstate travel. Consequently, the riders were not attacked by
mobs, but were left to the mercy of local judges. They were sentenced
to 60 days in a maximum security penitentiary by a judge who literally
turned his back on the riders' lawyer in court and faced the wall. That
summer Robert Kennedy at last petitioned the Interstate Commerce
Commission to issue regulations banning segregation, and the ICC complied.
Success took longer to achieve where court decisions and extreme
violence perpetrated by segregationists against activists could not be
depended upon to force federal action. The Montgomery bus boycott
(1955-56) lasted just over a year. Although the Supreme Court had
overturned segregation in interstate travel, southern bus companies
circumvented the law instituting local regulations. As black citizens of
Montgomery , Alabama , led by Martin Luther King, Jr., refused to ride
the buses until they were desegregated, the NAACP filed suit in federal
court. The bus companies were hit hard by the boycott, but they refused
to give in until the Supreme Court heard the case filed by the NAACP and
ruled bus segregation unconstitutional.
In Albany , Georgia (1961), the strategy broke down entirely. Invited
by locals to help organize against segregation, SNCC challenged the
system in bus stations, libraries, schools, and movie theatres. But
Police Chief Laurie Pritchett had read Dr. King's book and understood
the strategy of drawing out violence and filling up jails. He prevented
violence against the demonstrators and arranged for jails in surrounding
areas to accept arrestees. Meanwhile, the city filed suit in federal
court requesting a restraining order to stop the demonstrations.
Stymied, and with hundreds of local activists in jail, black leaders
invited Dr. King to help out. King had other commitments, but spent
some time in Albany giving speeches and leading marches. After almost
nine months of action, a federal judge sided with the city, and issued
the restraining order. Coretta Scott King explains the dilemma:
When the federal courts started ruling against us, that created a
whole different thing in terms of what strategy do you use now?
Because, up to that point, Martin had been willing to break state laws
that were unjust laws. And our ally was the federal judiciary. So, if
we would take our case to the federal court, and the court ruled against
us, what recourse did we have? ( Eyes On the Prize , 1987).
King asked President Kennedy to intervene, but he declined. Defeated,
King left Albany . (SNCC, however, remained to carry on the fight).
The strategy of some of the most famous actions of the civil rights era
depended upon favorable decisions from the federal judiciary and the
willingness of the federal government to exert its power � backed by
violence, as is the power of all governments � to enforce those
decisions. Note also that the activists' goal of exposing the violence
that enforced the Southern caste system was intended primarily to force
a confrontation between the federal and state governments and
secondarily to appeal to Northern and international supporters.
The notion, further developed by Gene Sharp, that violence inflicted on
nonviolent protesters will eventually win the hearts and minds of
individual civil servants, police officers, and others who uphold the
system, and that those individuals will then withdraw their cooperation
with the system, thereby enabling a victory for the activists, quickly
went out the window. Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth (SCLC) explained in a
discussion of the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott:
We thought we could shame America � But you can't shame
segregation� Rattlesnakes don't commit suicide. Ball teams don't strike
themselves out. You've got to put �em out ( Eyes on the Prize , 1987).
Occupy cannot employ a strategy similar to that of the civil rights
movement for a number of reasons. To begin with, the focus of the
Occupy movement is corporate power � the economic, political, and social
inequality it creates, as well as the destruction of the environment it
perpetrates. Supreme Court decisions in recent years increasingly favor
corporations over individual citizens. The most egregious of these is
the 2010 Citizens United decision asserting first amendment rights for
corporations and thereby banning limits on their campaign contributions.
Indeed, the Supreme Court increasingly appears unwilling to uphold even
basic civil rights. Witness the recent decision allowing police to
strip search citizens arrested for any offense, no matter how minor � a
practice banned by international human rights treaties. The Court has
also signaled that it may uphold portions of Arizona 's controversial
immigration law; in particular, the requirement that police officers
check the immigration status of anybody who looks like they might be an
illegal immigrant.
With or without favorable court decisions, it's a pretty safe bet that
the Obama administration will not be sending in the 101 st Airborne to
protect us from corporate malfeasance anytime soon � or even to protect
Occupiers against the violence of local police. A more likely scenario
is that the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and federal law
enforcement worked with local officials and law enforcement, suggesting
tactics and offering advice that resulted in a semi-coordinated and
brutal crackdown on encampments late last year.
Even if the contemporary political climate was favorable to a
legislative agenda enforced by the federal government, it is unlikely
that Occupy would pursue that strategy. Appealing for concessions from
a higher authority is not consistent with the overlapping values and
goals of horizontalism and anarchism that shape the Occupy movement.
Horizontalism, as Marina Sitrin explains , involves a concept of power
as �something we create together� It's not about asking, or demanding
of a government or an institutional power.� It's a way of relating to
one another, as equals, rather than according to positions in a social
hierarchy.
Horizontalism, or horizontalidad , emerged in Argentina , after that
country's 2001 economic crisis. People gathered in the streets, at
first banging pots and pans and generally registering protest.
Eventually, taking their cue from the landless movement in Brazil ,
which organized around the slogan, Occupy, Resist, Produce ,
Argentineans �recuperated,� or reclaimed workplaces such as factories,
schools, and clinics and collectively managed them. Similarly,
anarchism envisions an ideal society organized voluntarily and
cooperatively, with no one having power over another. The bottom-up
organizing principle of Occupy, then, is inconsistent with appeals to a
higher power.
In their classic text, Poor People's Movements (1977), Frances Fox Piven
and Richard Cloward argue that opportunities for insurgencies to emerge
are not available most of the time, and when they are, those
insurgencies are shaped by contemporary social conditions. In this
view, both the civil rights movement and Occupy were and are shaped by
the historical moment in which they appeared. I admire the veterans of
the civil rights movement and what they were able to achieve.
Contemporary economic and political conditions preclude that strategy
for Occupy, but at the same time present different, and in my view, more
exciting opportunities, for social change. The possibility of relating
to one another in a more egalitarian way, of empowering people rather
than seeking relief from a higher power, and of, as Noam Chomsky says ,
working toward a different way of living "not based on maximizing
consumer goods, but on maximizing values that are important for life,"
is deeply appealing. Occupy is the movement for our time � and I am
deeply grateful to all of those on the front lines.
Katherine M Acosta is freelance writer currently based in Madison,
Wisconsin. Contact her at kacosta at undisciplinedphd dot com. Her
blog is UndisciplinedPhD .
--
Dan Clore
New book: _Weird Words: A Lovecraftian Lexicon_:
http://tinyurl.com/yd3bxkw
My collected fiction: _The Unspeakable and Others_
http://tinyurl.com/3tyj9cq
Lord We�rdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Skipper: Professor, will you tell these people who is
in charge on this island?
Professor: Why, no one.
Skipper: No one?
Thurston Howell III: No one? Good heavens, this is anarchy!
-- _Gilligan's Island_, episode #6, "President Gilligan"
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