Role of Social and Grassroots movements in development with the use of Red Thread Movement of Guyana as a case study to support the discussions

Grassroots activism is activism that begins at the lowest level of the political pyramid: the local level. Grassroots activism can be described as an attempt to “weld the community into one bond of reason and emotion (3)” in the effort to achieve a common goal. Rather than trying to bring issues directly to the government, grassroots activism relies on pressuring the upper levels of the political pyramid (the regional, national and international level) into cooperation through the overwhelming force of mass protest, through strategies such as, organizing meetings, fundraising, and persuading voters to elect officials who represent the desired policies of the activists. A great majority of the Civil Rights Movements can be described as grassroots activism; numerous civil rights organizations were founded at the time such as the Congress of Racial Equality, the Southern Christian

Social movements are one of the primary means through which the public is able to collectively express their concerns about the rights and wellbeing of themselves and others. Under the proper conditions, social movements not only shed light on issues and open large scale public discourse, but they can also serve as a means of eliciting expedited societal change and progress. Due to their potential impact, studying the characteristics of both failed and successful social movements is important in order to ensure that issues between the public and the government are resolved to limit injustices and maintain societal progress.

Therefore, it is understandable that movement scholars tend to write from a rather activist stance. There is nothing wrong with this per se, however, as historians, we should critically assess in how far this positioning might limit our scholarship. At times, Payne tends to overemphasize the unity and the solidarity among the organizers and the local population and fails to mention the tensions among direct democratic groups like SNCC. Every social movement is made up of people, united under what they perceive as an urgent need to bring about change. This unity tends to suppress theoretical and practical differences for some time and can thus create a tremendous amount of communality and solidarity among its members. However, as history has shown over and over again, as soon as the external threat either diminishes or proves resistant to change, movements tend to disunite. This is what Baker and other activists wanted to prevent by modeling their training around local long-term strategies and individual

However, taken out of context, these fail to account for the fractured nature of the Third World Movement. A sense of awakening among groups that have been historically marginalized would suggest that a unified movement should have been inevitable.

The Progressive Era gave a chance for people’s voices to be heard in the form of reform movements. The African

activists led by TR who dedicate their program to direct democracy, civic duty and rights. Men who

What determines a movement? Malcolm Gladwell defines what pushes a movement to make a difference. He analyzes the concept of “strong ties” and “weak ties” and how these relationships affect an individual’s willpower and determination to help a cause. Gregory Orr puts these ideas into context in his memoir, “Return to Hayneville”, in which he recounts his experience and involvement in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Malcolm Gladwell’s “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted”, focuses, in particular, on the civil rights movement concentrates to the lunch counter sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina. Gladwell’s ideas and opinions of social and political emancipations are given a real world setting, as

Social movements shed light to social issues present in communities and harvest social change in political, religious, educational, health, government, and other institutional matters. Social movements give individuals a clear outlet to concerns about the rights and well-being of themselves and others, mostly through public protest and conversation, in order to promote social justice and democracy. Throughout history, humans naturally ended up starting movements to simply improve their way of life and movements have continually aided in a remarkable change in communities. In the essay “From Civil Rights to Megachurches,” Charles Duhigg explains the three critical steps that initiative successful social movements. Social movements must

This theory has played a significant role in helping mankind in the formation of social movements especially within contemporary society. It is imperative to note that Social movements are organized and sustained collective efforts that focus on some aspect of social change, and tend to persist over time in a more aggressive way compared to other forms of collective behaviour. Social movements may include actions that protect environments, defend the rights of the minority or promote social justice. The frustration- aggression theory argues that social movements are formed when frustration results in collective aggressive behaviour.

“As they fathom injustice, organize to protest, craft a tactics, and engage in action, these bodies read what is happening and articulate their imaginative rebuttal. In so doing they demonstrate to themselves and all those watching that something can be done. Could this be why they are called political ‘movements’?”

Movements are the reason today’s world is what it is. Many say it is a cruel one, but if it weren’t for the many life-changing movements, this world would be intolerable. Movements are typically large groups of people working together for an advance that benefits the community. We can never have enough of these because each one, large or small makes the world a better place. At rare times, it requires a lot of money, but the great things about movements is that most of the time it needs to money at all. All it takes the make the world a better place is time, energy, determination, and most importantly yourself. In some cases, a movement can positively influence millions of people!

Buechler, Steven M.. Social movements in advanced capitalism: the political economy and cultural construction of social activism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Print.

The second characteristic of NSM’s is tied to the first, in that groups no longer tend to share an over-arching ideological framework, whereas in Marxist discourse, such a shared frame was the “unifying and totalizing element for collective action” (Buechler & Cylke 277). Ideological unity has been supplanted by “pragmatic orientations” where movement members seek “institutional reform” to attain greater power in decision making processes, promoting a “‘democratizing dynamic’” in social movement discourse.

When we attack poverty on many levels, bringing together aid and education, community and economic development, and bringing empowerment to individuals, women and children, then we can begin to see real change in the communities and society. However, society is strutted in such a way that not all

Protests play a highly significant role in generating awareness of a certain topic, grievance or issue that may affect certain demographics or groups of people. The below essay aims to explore the connection between social and collective identity, and its influence and importance in protests. This will be done by discussing the “FeesMustFall” movement that was aimed at getting free tertiary education in South Africa. The protests were mainly student orientated and were highly documented.