In the early 1960s, African-American residents of southwest Georgia cooperated with
organizers from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to launch a freedom
movement that would attempt to battle white supremacy and bring all Americans closer to their
country's democratic ideals. Movement participants tried to overcome the fear ingrained in them
by daily life in the Jim Crow South, and to reconstruct American society from within. Working
within a tradition of black insurgency, participants attempted to understand the origins of the
intimidation and powerlessness that they often felt, and to form a strong community based on
mutual respect, equality, and trust. Black women played fundamental roles in shaping this
movement and African-American resistance patterns more generally, and struggles such as the
southwest Georgia movement reveal the ways in which black people have identified themselves
as American citizens, equated citizenship with political participation, and reinterpreted American
democratic traditions along more just and inclusive lines.
This thesis begins with a narrative of the movement. It then moves on to discuss SNCC's
efforts to build community solidarity and empower African-American residents of southwest
Georgia, and to consider the notion that SNCC owed its success to the activism of local women
and girls. Next, it proposes that in the southwest Georgia movement there was no clear
distinction between public and private space and work, and it suggests that activism in the
movement emerged from traditional African-American patterns of family and community
organization. Finally, this thesis asserts that the mass jail-ins for which the movement became
famous redefined and empowered the movement community.
This analysis reconsiders the analytical categories with which scholars generally study
social movements. Instead of employing a linear narrative structure that emphasizes formal
political activity and specific tactical victories, this thesis suggests that political participation
takes diverse forms and it highlights the cycles of community building and individual
empowerment that characterize grassroots organizing. It underscores the sheer difficulty of
initiating and sustaining a mass struggle, and argues that the prerequisite to forming an insurgent
movement is the ability of individuals to envision alternative social and cultural possibilities.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/11742 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Harrison, Alisa |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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