History's Kevin Young Co-Authors Article on the Civil Rights Movement and Climate Change
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Associate Professor of History Kevin Young recently co-authored an article with Yale University environmental social scientist Laura Thomas-Walters asking: What lessons from the 1963 Civil Rights victory in Birmingham, Alabama can be applied to today's climate movement?
"We wanted to think more deeply about the concept of disruption with an eye toward being useful to the climate movement," Young says. "Lessons from 1963 are often misunderstood."
Conventional thinking suggests that the success came when nonviolent protesters won the hearts of northern white liberals, who then pressured the Kennedy administration to intervene. Drawing on accounts of Black organizers, Young and Thomas-Walters emphasize the role of the economic boycott in compelling Birmingham's downtown business elite to push for an end to segregation.
They note that that public opinion was not on the side of demonstrators, but that the economic pressure applied to downtown businesses made the difference, rather than the public's reaction to the protests.