Moving from Idea to Action: Exploring the Relationships Between Personal Motivation and Collective Consciousness in Movement for Social Change

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

A common refrain is overheard from activists every January during the Martin Luther King, Jr. celebrations: “If everyone who claims today to have marched with Dr. King really did march, we wouldn’t have needed a movement. We would have been mainstream.” Can oral history help us to understand how and why certain people join movements for social change, and remain activists, and others do not? What different ways of knowing and understanding does oral history allow us to access that aren't accessible through other methods?

In this panel, three oral historians whose research is in the fields of civil rights, feminism, and war resistance will explore how personal and collective memory intersect in determining motivation. How can the insights of oral historians help to untangle the roots by which an activist moves from “idea” to “action”? How does an activist develop new ideas, identities, and understandings of the movement and of themselves? Under what influences do activists decide to stay in the movement, or under what circumstances do they leave? With these questions as a guide, the panel will focus an oral history lens on the relationships between personal motivation and collective consciousness.

Sub Unit

• Oral History Association Annual Meeting

Individual Presentations

• “SNCC Women: Personal Stories, Public Photographs & Power Players" - Wesley Hogan, Duke University

• “From the Personal to the Political: Roots of Second Wave Feminist Activism in Chicago” - Mary Ann Johnson, Chicago Area Women's History Council

• “Crossing Lines and Doing Time from 1968 to 2004: Exploring the Motivations of Serious War Resisters” - Rosalie Riegle, Saginaw Valley State University

Chair

• Emilye Crosby, SUNY-Geneseo