There is a great significance to the role of a social movements and protest. To start off, a social movement is a type of group action which can also be defined by an organization of structures or strategies. As said in the article “ The Return of Civil Disobedience” written by Jelani Cobb, it is stated that “ Movements are born in the moments when abstract principles become concrete concerns”. These groups of people are aiming toward the goal of social change. Common social changes could be in religious, political, educational, health, corporate and government groups. These groups are sometimes informal, large and closely connected with democratic political systems.
Some well known examples of social movements are the Civil Rights Movement, Green Movement, Gay Rights Movement and the Feminist Movement. With these examples of social movements, come along types of social movements. These types include redemptive, reformative, revolutionary and alternative. Next, a protest is more of an expression to show objection or disapproval to what they believe is right or fair. There are three categories of a protest, these being social, economic and political. With these three categories comes methods to make sure these protests run smoothly. Public speeches, letters, signed statements and groups of mass petitions could be used for nonviolent protests.
Consumer boycott, refusal to rent and policy of austerity are methods involving an economical protest. Lastly, techniques to hold a intervention protest would include self exposure, sit ins, stand ins, and nonviolent occupation. With the knowledge of social movements and protests, we can now see the significance of them. By this I mean that with people coming together to throw their ideas out there to what they believe in, it gives them a stronger voice and lets them have a solid role in society. It is important to stand up for what you believe in whether if it is your sexual preference, your religion or political views, having being heard for whatever you believe in really makes a difference. To continue this paper, as per the article, “The message of Black Lives Matter was inspired by the death of Trayvon Martin and the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri”.
This a huge movement to this day to be apart of, it helps voices be heard from all over the country. To make the impossible, possible, the people involved in this moment get the fairness they wanted and got to be heard for what they believed in, and that is what makes this movement so significant. Another good thing about this movement is that it brought out more problems in the world to be worked on and solved including police brutality and human rights. Listening this the Ted talk, Ramaa Mosley talked about her role in the march to “bring back our girls”. This was a movement/ protest to bring back the nigerian girls taken by terrorists. She started a facebook account which started with few people and than had an outbreak of 10,000 people joined. These people started meeting daily to march and protest. Mosley and her daughter stood outside the federal building of LA and held up signs than marched across LA, holding rallies here and there. She got question on why an american women would want to help these nigerian girls and her answer was that she is “human”.
This could show that this protest is simply for human rights. After hosting these rallies, speeches and posting it on social media, this got their voices out there and she began to get in touch by many newscasters. This lady got lucky by getting in touch with higher up people which really helped her movement trying to get the girls back home. By the end of this ted talk , I took in that you don’t need to be apart of something for it to be better. Like she said “ you do not need to be nigerian to help these girls, or to be black to be apart of the black lives matter movement.
