LSE Public Lecture: Social Movements in the US — From the American Revolution to Obama

Speaker: Professor Craig Calhoun
Date: July 23, 2013
Host: LSE Film and Audio Team

Overview

This lecture, delivered by Professor Craig Calhoun, examines the influence of social movements on the shaping of American society—from early religious activism and the American Revolution to the enduring legacies of race, gender, labor, and class struggles, culminating in the era of Barack Obama and contemporary movements like Occupy Wall Street. The discussion underscores how ordinary people, through both progressive and reactionary movements, have continually negotiated, reimagined, and sometimes contested democracy, equality, and social progress throughout US history.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins: Religion, Revolution, and the Idea of Social Movements

• Religious Beginnings
  • The catalyst for social movements in America can be traced back to the Protestant Reformation and Civil War era Britain, importing traditions of religious activism and lateral, interpersonal connections among common people.
  • “Part of the Protestantism of it is people read the Bible for themselves. They discuss and debate, they go listen to sermons by preachers. And the movement aspect of Protestantism is something that swells in large part from below.” (Craig Calhoun, 04:29)
• The Great Awakening and Early Mobilization
  • The 18th-century Great Awakening revitalized religious participation and laid groundwork for political mobilization, such as the Boston Tea Party.
  • Clubs and self-organized societies became vehicles for organizing protest and catalyzing revolution.
• Enlightenment Influences
  • Intellectual movements and free public education became distinguishing features of early US society, linking the revolution to Enlightenment ideals and democratic self-governance.

2. 19th-Century Movements: Abolition, Women's Rights, and Populism

• Antislavery and Women’s Movements
  • The Second Great Awakening fueled abolitionism and early women’s rights activism, often intertwined and stimulated by religious fervor.
  • “Many women had their first experience of speaking in public as orators, in the context either of religious preaching or of the anti-slavery movement.” (Craig Calhoun, 34:22)
  • The pivotal Seneca Falls Convention (1848) marked the confluence of these movements, emphasizing universal liberty.
  • Frederick Douglass’ declaration at Seneca Falls: “This is about freedom, this is about liberty, and we cannot any of us be free and not recognize the freedom of others. The freedom of women and the freedom of the slaves have to go together.” (Paraphrased, 36:12)
• Temperance and Reactionary Movements
  • Religious-driven temperance movements, as well as reactionary groups like the Anti-Masonic movement and the early Ku Klux Klan, emerge. Not all movements were progressive; some sought to defend or restore traditional power hierarchies.
• Populism and Labor
  • Populism championed the “people” against elites but often harbored exclusionary practices, impeding alliances across racial and ethnic lines.
  • Labor movements, often immigrant-driven, made significant if ephemeral advances in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

3. Progress and Recurrence: Waves of Social Change

• Enduring Issues & Multiple Waves
  • Movements seldom succeed quickly; issues like gender equality and race recur across decades in new forms.
  • “US history is a history of returning over and over again to certain core issues in many ways.” (Calhoun, 41:44)
• Countermovements
  • Every wave of activism is met with counter-mobilization: e.g., anti-suffrage headquarters, opposition to desegregation, or backlash against immigration.

4. Protests vs. Social Movements

• Events vs. Processes
  • Protests are visible, fleeting; movements are long-term processes that shape culture and politics.
  • “Protests are only a visible face of movements. They're not the whole story of movements ever. They're the bit we see that gets on TV, that gets reported in the newspapers. There's always lots of other things going on.” (Calhoun, 43:00)

5. Contemporary Movements: Media, Surveillance, and Participation

• Modern Examples
  • Occupy Wall Street, Tea Party, and other contemporary movements continue the American tradition of mass mobilization.
  • Media sensationalism can both amplify and distort movement realities, driving organizers toward ever-larger or more dramatic events.
• Social Movements and Technology
  • Leaks (e.g., Edward Snowden), digital activism, and the globalization of movement culture.
  • The tension between state surveillance and openness is an ongoing democratic concern.

6. Democracy, Elites, and the American Constitution

• Institutional Ambivalence
  • The Constitution balances empowerment of “the people” with protections against mass instability, reflecting elite anxieties about popular rule.
  • “It has a bunch of safeguards against the people running amok, but it also reflects the idea that the people have to be engaged… It’s a culture compromise decision.” (Calhoun, 50:43)

Audience Q&A: Notable Exchanges and Insights

Fear of “The People” and Elitism in US Institutions (50:43)

• Q (Host): Isn't the American Constitution fundamentally suspicious of direct popular rule?
• A (Calhoun): “From early on, this is in the US a kind of back and forth process. You get a popular mobilization, you get elites who want to tame it or domesticate it if it can support the things they believe in...The Constitution is a document that reflects that exactly as you say, that it has a bunch of safeguards against the people running amok, but it also reflects the idea that the people have to be engaged.”

The Persistence of Racial Issues (53:00)

• Q: Can issues of race in America ever be resolved?
• A: “Forever is a long time, but we've been stuck with it for hundreds of years and it's not going away fast...the race issue is losing some of its complete distinctiveness as a special thing and becoming part of the issue of inequality and partially merging with class and other inequality issues.” (Calhoun, 53:23)

Isolationism, War, and Protest (55:33)

• Q: How do anti-war movements (America First, Vietnam protests) compare across history?
• A: Calhoun traces the continuity of isolationist sentiment and shifting protest strategies depending on context (e.g., conscription vs. volunteer armies, middle-class involvement).
• “What the draft and conscript army meant was that a variety of relatively privileged people, middle class, upper class kids at universities, were being drafted and it became a personal issue to these people.” (59:39)

The Decline of Mass Mobilization Post-2000 (59:39)

• Q: Why hasn’t the Iraq/Afghanistan war generated protest on the scale of Vietnam?
• A: Professional armies reduce personal stakes; class and institutional segmentation mute protest. Declining union influence may also reduce mobilization.

Media Sensationalism and Movements (64:44)

• Q: Does the media’s thirst for sensationalism distort how protest is perceived?
• A: “Yes, exactly. And it distorts in multiple ways...it creates a pressure on social movements to produce something more dramatic...there is a pull towards violent confrontation...the media love leaders, spokespeople, and so movements...tend to play up the differences between a few leaders and everybody else in movements.” (64:44-67:19)

The Snowden Case & Transparency (67:31)

• Q: How does the American response to Edward Snowden fit into these themes?
• A: Leaks and digital activism continue the tradition of fighting for transparency and democratic accountability, but such movements remain relatively niche unless broadly adopted.

Finance as a New Frontier for Activism (72:15)

• Q: Can social movements effect faster change through finance (e.g., critical shareholding)?
• A: There is potential, via institutional investors and public campaigns, but movements seldom have more money than their adversaries and must rely on indirect influence: “a sort of martial arts move...where those with less bulk can potentially have an influence on those with more.” (76:15)

Plurality of Movements and Agenda Setting (72:57, 73:30)

• Q: With so many movements now, how can they avoid crowding out one another?
• A: Diversity is natural and desirable; historical moments of apparent unity were also in fact complex. The solution is not to demand uniformity, but to seek synergy and intersectionality between causes.

Memorable Quotes & Moments

• "A bunch of individuals don't become the people. They have to be connected to each other in one way or another to become the people, to be able to act together." (Calhoun, 19:49)
• “Movements seldom win complete victories, but they shape political agendas. A large part of what it means to be a movement...is that ordinary people mobilized in action out in the streets, changed the agenda for politics.” (Calhoun, 45:09)
• “It's a country which has the unusual feature of expanding its contours for nearly 200 years...and then there are themes like urbanization and capitalism that are common with many countries that take place.” (Calhoun, 16:19)
• “Movements almost never can win a straight clash of power or a straight clash of wealth...what they usually do is create enough bad publicity and unhappiness that it seems worthwhile to the corporation to change some of its policies.” (Calhoun, 76:58)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00–02:35 — Introductory remarks, Professor Calhoun’s background
• 03:35–13:00 — Religious roots, the Great Awakening, origins of social mobilization in America
• 13:00–20:00 — American Revolution, Enlightenment, and creation of public education
• 20:00–28:00 — 19th-century movements: abolition, women’s rights, populism
• 28:00–38:00 — Recurring patterns: evangelical revival, interaction of reformist and reactionary movements
• 38:00–44:00 — Gender, race, and the structure of protest vs. enduring social change
• 44:00–50:43 — The limits of protest, contemporary movement examples (Occupy, Tea Party), movement repetition and agenda setting
• 50:43–76:58 — Audience Q&A: case studies (race, war, media, surveillance, finance, pluralism of modern movements)
• 76:58–End — Closing acknowledgements and discussions

Conclusion

Professor Calhoun’s lecture demonstrates that the fabric of American democracy is one continually woven and re-woven by the actions of social movements—from religious revivals and revolutionaries through abolitionists, suffragettes, workers, populists, and activists for equality. Both the content and cadence of American progress are set not merely by leaders or institutions, but by “the people” in all their variety—persistently, disruptively, and repeatedly negotiating the meaning of freedom, inclusion, and justice.