The Sociology Colloquium Series: Welcomes Dr. Andy Andrews
Colloquia Title:
“Structure and Contingency in Local Protest Challenging Jim Crow”
In the 1950s and 1960s, activists across numerous cities orchestrated local movements to challenge Jim Crow. How can we explain the trajectories of local protest including their emergence, dynamics, and consequences? I address these enduring puzzles in the field by developing a synthetic argument supported by a comparative analysis of local movements. I move beyond dominant theoretical models that locate the causes of protest in national-level patterns of political opportunity, grievances, and organization. Instead, I focus on local sources of organizational capacity, the temporal clustering of protests in episodes, and the interactions among activists, authorities, targets, and bystanders that shape the trajectory of local episodes.