Morris on black agency and leverage politics
Morris challenges Alexander on other points as well, which need to be factored into the analysis, however his position can be taken on board while also sharing Alexander’s emphasis on the importance of cultural power.
____________
When Alexander writes about the civil rights movement’s persuasive power, his main focus is on how it persuaded the northern white audience (though Alexander also notes the importance of influencing ‘world opinion’ as well as the failure of efforts to persuade white Southerners).1
Morris argues that Alexander presents a picture where change occurred only after the black movement convinced sympathetic northern white liberals to identify psychologically with blacks, who then influenced politicians to legislate.
Morris emphasises that the media coverage gained by the civil rights movement ‘would have meant nothing if blacks had not been able to mobilize and sustain a national movement that disrupted the political, economic, and social functioning of the society, thus creating the primary leverage for change’ (p. 626, emphasis added).
Key claims Morris makes about
black agency and leadership
movement mobilisation
the leverage that the civil rights movement exerted through economic and disruptive strategies
can be taken on board, without losing a focus on the imagery, narrative, and social drama that the movement generated.
All of these forms of power mattered for achieving change.
In Morris’s view, Alexander instead places ‘the primary agency of change in the hands of whites’, whereas Morris affirms that ‘the black masses generated real economic and political leverage, and that power served as the primary direct force of social change’ (p. 617). Here, the central actors ‘are southern and northern black people, their institutions, creative culture, and their capacity to mobilize for change.’ (p. 623).
Both-and, not either-or
There is plenty to agree with in Morris’s perspective. However, issues of agency, who leads the movement, and the importance of economic and disruptive leverage are different from the question of whether cultural power matters.
This website shares Morris’s position that black agency and the ‘people power’ of a mobilised movement belong at the centre of the analysis; however, his position can be held together with Alexander’s focus on cultural power, including how cultural power matters for:
- shifting white opinion
- shifting black opinion
- energising and focusing the black movement’s own work
- generating political will and political momentum
- shifting the political agenda
If the movement’s dramatic actions and iconic images were removed from the picture…
Cultural power consistently figured in the Civil Rights Movement, working in tandem with grassroots organising.
If the movement’s dramatic actions and iconic images were removed from the picture, the movement would be unrecognisable, and also unable to exert the kind of power that Morris points to as critical for its success—from the symbolism of the Montgomery Bus Boycott to the imagery and theatre of the lunch counter sit-ins to the drama of the Freedom Rides and the stand-off with Bull Connor in Birmingham to the marches from Selma to Montgomery.
These were dramatic events –
through them, the movement ‘enacted’ a powerful story that we could see.
There is no need to choose between cultural power and the economic and disruptive leverage generated by an organised movement: they are different dimensions of power. All of them were vital for achieving the changes that the movement made possible.
Sources:
Alexander, Jeffrey C. (2006). The Civil Sphere. Oxford: Oxford University Press. See also Alexander, Jeffrey C. (2006b). Performance and Counter-Power (1): The Civil Rights Movement and the Civil Sphere. Culture, 20(2), 1-6.
Morris, Aldon. (2007). Naked power and the civil sphere. The Sociological Quarterly, 48(4), 615-628.