The Duality of Bridge Leadership: Uncovering the Cross-regional History of the Civil Rights Movement

• In Event: 451 - Section on Race, Gender and Class Paper Session. Intersectionality and Social Movements: Redevelopment, Gentrification, and Space

Abstract

Recent studies of social movement leadership have moved well beyond traditional baseline distinctions between “leaders” and “followers,” to conceive of leadership as a layered, variegated, and often collective phenomenon. We focus on one key associated distinction, building on Robnett’s (1996) conception of “bridge leadership” to interrogate the complexities of bridging work. In particular, we emphasize the interplay between the organizations and individuals who forge such bridges, as well as how these intersections play out in geographic and social space. To gain theoretical leverage over these elements and their relationship to social movement mobilization, we draw on classical conceptions of “duality” to surface the mutually-constitutive nature of bridging work. Focusing on the relationship that emerged in the mid-1960s between Ruth Batson, a prototypical bridge leader based in Boston, and the group Wednesdays in Mississippi (WIMS), whose organizational mission was to create cross-regional bridges within the Civil Rights Movement by connecting activist women in northern cities with the Mississippi movement, we identify and elaborate distinct processes through which bridges emerge and unfold.

Authors

• Aja Janine Antoine, Brandeis University

• David Cunningham, Washington University in St. Louis