Three Waves of Social Movements

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the first wave, which began at the end of the Civil War and included many moral reform movements, such as the abolition of alcohol and public restraint. The second wave of protests took place between 1890 and 1920 and attempted to reform the amount of political corruption and the economic power of corporations. The paper then moves to discuss the third wave of protests, which included the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s with the "Brown vs. Board" case in 1954 and continued up until the 1980s and 1990s.

From the Paper:

"The Civil Rights movement set the tone and style for what the sixties progeny was to consist of. Not only did the Civil Rights movement challenge the basic American values but it also targeted a distinct enemy in segregation. The timing could not have been more perfect. The post world war two generation was fast to associate the ways of segregation with that of hated Hitler's Germany, and the Civil Rights movement captured the attention and imagination of a public that was fed up with conformity."

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