In Memoriam: James S. Jackson
September 4, 2020
University of Michigan Week on The Academic Minute
September 14, 2020Making a Movement: Coalition Building, Capitalism, and How History Can Inform The Activism of Today
September 6, 2020
Discussion Resources
- Anti-Racism Collaborative
- ARC Event
- Coffee Breaks with Scholars
- Diversity Scholars Network
- Funding & Engagement Opportunities
- National Center for Institutional Diversity
Among the many issues thrust to the forefront of U.S. national consciousness in 2020 has been state use of violence, particularly police murders of Black Americans. As a result, there have been myriad calls for all types of police and criminal justice reforms, as well as calls for larger systemic change. But how do we get there? Drs. Christian Davenport, Derrick Darby, and Sarah Soule discuss what scholarship, research, and history can tell us about building a social movement. Their conversation touches topics of state violence and coercion, the Black Lives Matter Movement, coalition-building, and what today’s young people can learn from past organizations and movements for social change.
Panelists
Dr. Christian Davenport, Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan as well as a Faculty Associate at the Center for Political Studies and Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)
Dr. Derrick Darby, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan
Dr. Sarah Soule, The Morgridge Professor of Organizational Behavior and Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Stanford University
Resources
Time Table
4:44 - Do we know what a movement is?
13:00 - Translating knowledge and energy into action and change
18:30 - History can and should inform today's activism
25:45 - Connecting calls for reform and defunding police to broader issues: self-determination, nationhood, and capitalism
27:44 - Returning to organizational structure
31:00 - The relevance of identity and heterogeneity in a movement
34:00 - The root of the problem - economic inequality
36:30 - Building coalitions
38:00 - Fragmentation and the challenges brought by severe wealth inequality
49:00 - Protests and policing