Institutionalizing Counter‐Memories of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement: The National Civil Rights Museum and an Application of the Interest‐Convergence Principle

Was the modern civil rights movement successful? I depart from traditional approaches that judge success in terms of political inclusion and policy response and instead ask “ordinary” blacks what they thought. Using 1968 survey data, I find that while a slight majority (58%) believed that the movement successfully reduced racial discrimination, a sizable share (42%) saw failure. It seems most accurate to conclude that both perspectives resonated with large segments of the black population. I next examine who thought the movement a success and uncover that blacks of higher economic standing had the most faith in the movement's achievements. This result supports critics who thought that the poor were left behind by the movement's gains. Finally, while there was overall stability from 1968 to 2000 in opinion, the mid‐1980s represented the nadir in thinking the movement successful. This development appears to have been a reaction to the racially hostile Reagan administration and the worsening economic position of blacks in the 1980s. Views on the civil rights movement, thus, are a living memory that can be altered by contemporary deleterious developments. I conclude by arguing that conceptualizations of success should be grounded in how movements impact the everyday lives of their constituency.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Was the Civil Rights Movement Successful? Tracking and Understanding Black Views

Santoro

2015

“…People without access to institutional power can also shape official memory projects. This is powerfully illuminated in studies of the National Civil Rights Museum and commemorations for the “Mississippi Burning” murders (Pelak ; Whitlinger ). Pelak (:306) documents the transformation of the Lorraine Motel into the now‐famous National Civil Rights Museum—a process in which organized groups of citizens succeeded in institutionalizing countermemories.…”

Section: The Social Shape Of the Pastmentioning

confidence: 99%

Narrating Genocide: Time, Memory, and Blame

Brehm

Fox

2016

More than 20 years have passed since the Rwandan genocide, yet we know little about how Rwandans remember the violence. This article draws upon more than 100 interviews with genocide survivors to assess collective memories of the atrocity. We find that survivors organize their narratives by conceptualizing the genocide as a watershed event that divides time into two distinct eras. When discussing the pregenocide period, survivors focus on macrolevel events and structures, locating blame for the genocide in institutions rather than on Rwandan citizens. By contrast, narratives of life after the genocide focus on perceived progress since 1994. We interpret these findings in light of the state's memory projects, the potential functionality of the memories, and the time needed for collective memories to resonate.

“…Sociologists have long been interested in collective representations of the past (Halbwachs and Coser 1992 [1925]; Olick and Robbins ; Zelizer ), the processes through which individuals, groups, or events have been excluded from those representations (Armstrong and Crage ; Irwin‐Zareka ; Pelak ; Sturken ), and the challenge of commemorating difficult pasts (Vinitzky‐Seroussi ; Wagner‐Pacifici and Schwartz ). Thus, in addition to research on collective memory and the many vehicles through which it is represented, scholars have demonstrated a growing interest in memory's inverse—silence, denial, and social forgetting (Cohen ; Rivera ; Vinitzky‐Seroussi and Teeger ; E. Zerubavel ).…”

Section: Acknowledging Silenced Pastsmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Countermemory to Collective Memory: Acknowledging the “Mississippi Burning” Murders

Whitlinger

2015

Sociologists have long been interested in collective representations of the past, as well as the processes through which individuals, groups, or events have been excluded from those representations. Despite this rich body of literature, few studies have examined the processes through which long‐silenced countermemory becomes integrated within “official” public memory. This study examines two instances of silence breaking in Philadelphia, Mississippi—the town notorious for the silence, denial, and collective obstruction of justice surrounding the 1964 “Mississippi Burning” murders. By reconstructing and comparing the event structure of the twenty‐fifth and fortieth anniversary commemorations—both interracial community‐wide events unique for having punctuated Philadelphia's prevailing silence on the murders—this article finds that commemorability and mnemonic capacity are necessary but insufficient factors for “silence breaking” commemorations to emerge. This study identifies two additional criteria necessary for commemorations that publicly acknowledged long‐silenced pasts: pressure from external forces, and the convergence of interests between those previously opposed to and those in favor of acknowledgment.