The Making of a Movement: An Inter-Generational Mobilization Model of the Non-Violent Nashville Civil Rights Movement

• In Event: 1449 - Comparative Historical Sociology and Human Rights (Co-sponsored with the Section on Comparative-Historical Sociology)

Abstract

The Nashville civil rights movement was planned by national movement leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and local adult clergy, yet it relied on the energy of a restless student population. How can we account for the apparent willingness of college students to participate in a movement spearheaded by more senior adults? Building on recent scholarship on bridge building within social movements, in this paper we develop an intergenerational model of movement mobilization using the case of the 1960s-era nonviolent Nashville civil rights movement. We describe the Nashville civil rights movement as unfolding in three stages: in the first stage of site selection, senior national movement leaders selected and transformed Nashville into an exemplary site of transformative social action. In the second stage of tactical design, national and local senior and younger local movement leaders designed tactics that a) aligned with the values and priorities of both the national movement leadership and local residents and b) deployed the local built environment (e.g., boulevards, lunch counters, and movie theaters) and local human resources (in this case, a large college student population). In the third stage of biographical convergence, students arriving on independent biographical pathways into Nashville self-selected into the movement based on their prior politicization and biographical availability. Accounting for such students’ willingness to participate in an adult-planned movement, we highlight the role of the bridge leader James Lawson, who held the roles as both a graduate divinity student at Vanderbilt University and a Fellowship of Reconciliation and Southern Christian Leadership Conference organizer, and who would play a key role in bridging students, national and local adult organizers, and the wider Black community.

Authors

• Daniel B. Cornfield, Vanderbilt University

• Jonathan Scott Coley, Oklahoma State University

• Larry W. Isaac, Vanderbilt University

• Dennis C. Dickerson, Vanderbilt University