Learning Objectives
- Outline what constitutes social movements and social change.
- Describe what it means to be antiracist and feminist, and how antiracist and feminist movements have helped address social problems.
- Identify key goals of the Black Lives Matter movement and how its organizers view forms of oppression as interconnected.
- Summarize differences between the types of social movements and between social movement theories.
- Explain the stages of social movements including how Black Lives Matter organizers effectively used social media in each of the stages.
- Apply the social problems process to better understand the history of racism and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Quote
Social movements are not marginal to society. They are social engines of social change.
– Aldon Morris
When you hear “Black Lives Matter," what do you think of? You might think of protests, police violence against people of color, or some of the counter-protests. Fundamentally, Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a response to racial inequity. Racial inequity exists when different racial groups experience unequal outcomes. In 2013, #BlackLivesMatter emerged as an urgent and provocative claim driving the most recent iteration of a centuries-long social movement for racial justice in the US. Racial justice is a response to racism that seeks to change social systems in order to reduce racial inequities and to address the social and interpersonal conditions caused by racial inequities.
As you might recall, racism is the systemic, institutionalized oppression of people of color. It is the marriage of racist policies and racist ideas that produces and normalizes racial inequities. Antiracism, then, is the fight to dismantle and prevent racist policies and ideas that produce and normalize racial inequities. BLM is an antiracist movement that focuses largely on police brutality but also on racism more broadly and on other systems of power that oppress people in marginalized groups.
In the summer of 2020, many cities across the US erupted in nightly protests against police brutality and the overpolicing of Black people. Protests across the nation captured national attention. These protests of outrage and dissent amplified critical narratives about policing and racism that continue to shape public policy. To see highlights of the protests in one city, watch at least the first five minutes of the video below.
Since the summer of 2020, BLM-inspired strides towards racial justice, in terms of both public opinion and policy change, have coincided with a so-called 'anti-woke backlash.' That backlash has involved attempts by conservative activists and elected officials to censor educational materials about racism, intersectionality, critical race theory, queer theory, and other critical theories, despite that racialized police brutality and other forms of racism and oppression continue. In 2024, the police killed 1,375 people (Mapping Police Violence 2025). Black, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, Native American, and Latinx people are more likely to be killed by the police than white people. If you would like to look at the most current statistics, feel free to examine Mapping Police Violence.
In this chapter, we consider the impacts of the Black Lives Matter social movement as a case study of how social movements can drive social change. We will provide another example of social movements, specifically feminist movements, though we will offer more attention to BLM. We will offer a sociological perspective on social movements, with BLM as an illustrative example, including types of movements, theorizing about movements, and the stages of movements.
We will also apply the social problems process to problems of racism and the BLM movement. To understand how sociologists think about social movements, we will trace out a history of BLM organizing within a broader antiracist movement to reimagine safe communities and consider theoretical and activist lineages with roots in the emancipatory sociology of W.E.B. Du Bois and the civil rights movement of the mid-20th Century.
We will get to know Alicia Garza, Ayọ Tometi, and Patrisse Cullors, organizers with a bold abolitionist vision who built a platform that has transformed the global conversation about racism, policing, and the value of Black lives. Before proceeding, because we discuss the Black Lives Matter social movement throughout this chapter, please watch the following TED Talk in which these three advocates discuss the goals and purpose of Black Lives Matter as well as other social problems and social justice.
Social Movements
Social movements are purposeful, organized, sustained collective action to bring about (or oppose) social change. They involve large groups of people that work toward a common goal, often a social justice oriented goal. Social movements are not one-time events such as riots or memorials but are ongoing – for years, decades, or even centuries. They are not spontaneous but highly organized, though the degree and structure vary widely.
Social change refers to changes that occur throughout the structure or culture of a society. Thus, social change is about large-scale changes in social institutions, cultural values, and other societal processes. It is not a phenomenon like a fad or viral video, but a broader, more encompassing change in society. However, despite that social change refers to broad changes within society's structure or culture, the social movements that bring about social change can occur even at local levels.
Movements can happen locally, at state or national levels, and worldwide. Try to think of several examples of social movements, from local to global. No doubt you can think of some movements, perhaps on all of these levels, especially since modern technology has allowed us a near-constant stream of information about the quest for social change around the world.
Local social movements typically refer to those in cities or towns but can also affect smaller constituencies, such as college campuses. Sometimes colleges are smaller hubs of a national movement, as seen during Vietnam War, Black Lives Matter, and Free Palestine protests. Other times, colleges are managing a more local issue.
Students have long been central to social movements and collective action more broadly. This image is of an antiwar student walkout to protest the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
Student WalkOut WDC 20 March 2003 by Elvert Barnes via Wikimedia Commons is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
There is also state-level organizing. For example, the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that reversed Roe v. Wade and ended the federally guaranteed right to abortion (and potentially to privacy for all) was met with a flurry of responses at the state level. Anti-abortion organizers had worked for years to prepare for this decision by putting in place trigger laws to immediately outlaw or severely restrict abortion access in their home states and others in the event of such a reversal. Other states responded with legislation to support access to abortion and other reproductive services. A notable and surprising response came from voters in Kansas, often considered reliably conservative and, by extension, anti-abortion. Kansas voters soundly rejected an attempt to repeal existing language in the state constitution that protects the right to abortion access. Each of these outcomes was shaped by competing social movements at the state level that either favor or oppose abortion access.
Many worldwide social movements mobilize collective action in response to global social problems such as poverty, inequality, and exploitation. Pro-democracy movements are also rising in response to perceived increases in authoritarianism and fascism. Some analysts cite the Arab Spring in 2010, Occupy Wall Street in 2011, and Black Lives Matter in 2020 worldwide protests to argue that we are in an age of global protests. Researchers estimate that BLM and antiracist protests took place in 93 countries and territories across the globe after the murder of George Floyd (Pressman & Devin 2023).
We will explore the BLM movement in more detail on the following pages. For now, let's see a different example: Feminism.
Feminist Movements
Feminism refers to the belief that there should be gender equality in economic, political, and social life. In the US, feminism as a social movement began during the abolitionist period before the Civil War, though it has taken various forms over the decades and even centuries, with differing goals and tactics.
Feminist movements in the US have greatly advanced the cause of women’s equality and changed cultural views about gender. In the 'first wave,' abolitionists such as Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton focused on many issues including coverture (laws that effectively defined women as their husband's property) and the right to gain education, but especially the right to vote, which the feminist Suffrage Movement won in 1920.
Suffragettes and other feminists fought for women's equality for hundreds of years in the US and abroad. A major win in the US occurred over 100 years ago when women won the right to vote. However, Black women and other women of color were disenfranchised, and the fight continued in antiracist and resistance movements of the twentieth century.
Suffragette Procession, 1911 by unknown via Picryl is under the Public Domain
The 'second wave' of the feminist movement began in the late 1960s, as women active in the Civil Rights movement and other social justice movements turned their attention to women’s rights such as to education, work, and bodily autonomy. This movement profoundly changed public thinking and social institutions, though as we have seen, much gender inequality remains. In the 'third wave' of feminism that began in the 1990s, the focus on women and sexism expanded to include others who face gender oppression such as cissexism (the systemic oppression of trans people), as well as other forms of oppression such as racism, classism, and ableism.
However, there were always feminists who fought against systems of oppression apart from sexism. For instance, feminists of color throughout US history such as Sojourner Truth, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Ella Baker, and Audre Lorde have fought against multiple systems of oppression, argued that all forms of oppression are connected. They and others took an intersectional approach that emphasizes the intersections between varying forms of oppression, such as how racism can exacerbate experiences of sexism for women of color.
What evidence is there for the impact of the contemporary women’s movement on public thinking? The General Social Survey (GSS), the Gallup poll, and other national surveys show that the public has shifted away from sexist views toward more feminist views. To illustrate this, let's consider the GSS question that reads:
Please tell me whether you strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree... It is much better for everyone involved if the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home and family.
The figure below shows that agreement with this statement has dropped substantially since the mid-1970s (this figure excludes the response 'strongly agree'). In 1977, nearly two-thirds of the population (64% of respondents) 'strongly agreed' or 'agreed' with the statement. This figure dropped to 22% in 2021, or less than a quarter of the population. However, an anti-feminist backlash has developed over the past few years, which increased the figure to 32% in 2024. In other words, support for sexist gender roles declined in this period from two-thirds of the public to one-third of the public.
This chart illustrates the decline in agreement with the idea that it's better for men to do paid work outside the home and women to do unpaid work inside the home, which measures the breadwinner/homemaker ideology. (Note that this chart excludes those who 'strongly agreed.')
Source: Davern, Bautista, Freese, Herd, & Morgan, GSS Data Explorer, 2024
Another GSS question that has measured sexist attitudes over the years asked whether respondents feel that, "Most men are better suited emotionally for politics than are most women." In 1977, nearly half of respondents agreed (49%), whereas in 2018 only 14% agreed.
Similarly, the GSS asked, "If your party nominated a woman for President, would you vote for her if she were qualified for the job?" In 1970, 70% of respondents agreed, while this figure grew to 96% in 2010. Although we have not yet had a woman president, Hillary Clinton did win the popular vote in the 2016 presidential election, and survey evidence indicates the public is overwhelmingly willing to vote for a woman.
As demonstrated by these responses to GSS survey questions, sexist views have indeed declined. You may check out more GSS data trends via the GSS Data Explorer's Key Trends site.
Today some individuals say, “I’m not a feminist, but…,” and then go on to add that they hold certain beliefs about gender equality and traditional gender roles that actually fall into a feminist framework. Their reluctance to self-identify as feminists underscores the negative image that feminists and feminism have but also suggests that the actual meaning of feminism may be unclear. To be clear, feminism at its basic is simply the belief in gender equality.
Feminist movements have made great strides in changing public understandings of gender issues in marriage, family, sexuality, work, education, and even sexual assault and rape. Recall that a constructionist view is interested in how our collective understandings of a social problem develop. Below we explore that process in more detail, using the example of feminism's impact on conceptions of rape.
Feminism, the Social Construct of Rape, and Social Justice. We can see that the social problem of rape is socially constructed because our ideas change over time. Initially, European courts and lawyers defined rape as a crime of property. This view of women’s bodies is profoundly disturbing to us today but was common in seventeenth-century English law. Legally, women were considered the property of their fathers or their husbands, and coverture laws dictated that a woman's legal personhood was dissolved into that of her husband's upon marriage. Further, it was thought that married women could not be raped by their husbands because consent was implied as part of the marriage contract.
When feminist activists in the 1970s challenged this legal definition of rape, related laws began to change. Rape, which included marital rape, became defined as a crime of violence and social control against an individual person (Rose 1977). In a more recent study, researchers examined how rape was defined in a college community between 1955 and 1990 (Abu-Odeh, Khan, & Nathanson 2020). Early descriptions of rape in school and community newspapers painted the picture that white women students were safe on campus. If they ventured beyond campus to predominantly Black neighborhoods, they risked being raped. Although this assumption was wrong, people believed that rape was a crime committed by a Black or Brown man who was a stranger rather than by a white man who the survivor already knew. This story relied on the false racial myth that Black men were dangerous. In addition, from this perspective, the police were responsible for keeping white women safe (Abu-Odeh, Khan, & Nathanson 2020).
With the work of feminist activists, the concept of rape and the response to rape changed. In the 1970s and 1980s, women’s centers and health professionals defined rape as an act of sexual violence that supported the power of men and an issue that threatened women’s health. The person who experienced rape began to be called a survivor rather than a victim. Men who raped or committed other kinds of sexual harassment could be identified as part of the campus community rather than being defined as strangers. Changes in the social construction of rape allowed for more effective community responses in preventing rape, prosecuting rape, and supporting the healing of rape survivors (Abu-Odeh, Khan, & Nathanson 2020). (Notably, the definition of legal rape has recently expanded to include victims of any gender, not only women.)
Feminist activists continue this work. Black activist Tarana Burke (pictured below) founded the #MeToo movement in 2006 so survivors of sexual violence could tell their stories. These stories highlight how common sexual violence is for women, as well as nonbinary people and men. It expands our conversation about rape to a wider discussion around the causes and consequences of sexual violence.
Black feminist activist Tarana Burke, picture above, is the founder of the #MeToo Movement. How has #MeToo changed your willingness to talk about sexual violence or to take action?
“Tarana Burke” by Marco Verch is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Actor Alyssa Milano drew attention to this movement when she tweeted #MeToo in 2017 (on Twitter, now known as X). This movement has resulted in some changes in the law (Beitsch 2018) and in stronger prosecution of perpetrators of sexual violence in some cases (Carlsen et al. 2018). If you would like to learn more about #MeToo from Burke herself, please watch the TED Talk Me Too Is a Movement, Not a Moment.
In this constructionist view, the definition of rape, the actors in the crime, and the responsibility for fixing the problem changed over time in ways that advanced social justice, largely due to activists engaged in feminist movements. Feminist movements and activists have also helped create social change in regard to workplace environments, access to education, portrayals of women in media, and many other arenas of socia life and institutions.
On the following pages we will explore social movements in more depth, including the various types of movements, the stages of movements, and how movements align with another constructionist view – the social problems process.
