1. Talk Today
Please join the history department in welcoming Jennifer Donnally to campus! Jennifer is a candidate for a Visiting Assistant Professor position in our department, and will be giving a research talk at 4pm tomorrow  titled, "The Anti-Abortion Movement and the Political Uses of the Past: Remembering Slavery, Abolitionism and Dred Scott v. Sanford.”

2. Paper Comments 1. Jo Freeman can serve as a model for topic 1.
2. For topic 2, there are often multiple strategies and tactics used by a movement. Comparison of the effectiveness of these different approaches may be a key part of your paper. In many cases, there will be heated internal debate on the effectiveness of different strategies. (Think for example of the debates surrounding Freedom Summer). These debates may be useful sources for your paper.
3. Organize history around your analytical argument. Don’t tell the story of your movement for its own sake.
4. An issue is not a movement. Look for concrete campaigns/organizations to analyze.

3. Levels of Explanation 1. Political Opportunities 2. Resources
3. Individual Discontent

4. The Basic “Classical” Model
Social > Disruptive  Social
Strain Psychological State Movement
(Status Anxiety, Relative
Deprivation)

5. A “Classical” Attempt to Explain Civil Rights
1. Specification/ measurement of social strain and disruptive psychological states
2. Movements generally don’t appear to be coming from isolated individuals, but instead from pre-existing groups
3. Failure to deal with issues of resources or political opportunities.

6. SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND THE NEGRO REVOLT: AN EXAMINATION OF SOME HYPOTHESES* JAMES A. GESCHWENDER Social Forces 1964
ABSTRACT An attempt is made to examine objective structural conditions in order to provide a socio- logical interpretation of the current Negro revolt. The sociological literature is examined and five structural hypotheses are derived. Data on the changing position of the nonwhite in the United States are examined. Nonwhites are found to be improving their position in terms of level of education, type of occupation, and amount of income. They are found to be improving their position relative to whites in level of education and in holding middle status occupations but not upper status occupations. They are falling further behind whites in income. It seems likely that the proportion of status inconsistents among Negroes is increasing. The data are inconsistent with two of the derived hypotheses and are consistent with the other three. These latter hypotheses are reconciled in terms of a single common denominator: Changes in objective conditions cause feelings of relative deprivation, which, in turn, produce a tendency toward protest and rebellion.

7. Mississippi and your Movement
From what you have read about the Black Freedom movement in Mississippi does this look like a promising way to explain the movement’s emergence?
Why or why not?
What might it miss?
From what you have read about your movement does this look like a promising way to explain the movement’s emergence?
Why or why not?
What might it miss?

8. Some General Problems with “Classical” Approaches

9. Olson- Why doesn’t discontent lead to a movement?
p. 60 “rational, self-interested individuals will not act to achieve their common or group interests.”
Why not?

10. Olson Collective Goods
P. 61 “A common, collective or public good, is here defined as any good such that if person X…consumes it, it cannot be withheld from others in the group.”
What are examples of public goods?
Does the civil rights movement (or your movement) pursue collective goods?

11. If Olson is correct, why does any group form?
1. Groups organized for another purpose
What are examples of this?
Freeman, Civil Rights
2. Selective Incentives (go only to members who participate in group efforts)
a. Group has access to internal resources to distribute
b. Outside support/resources
c. Coercion