Lesson1

Lesson1: Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmR1YvfIGng
Mass Movements:
The Anti-Apartheid Struggle and the Civil Rights Movement.
Students will study the many parallels between the Anti-Apartheid struggles of South Africa and the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. Drawing upon intercultural content within an international context, the reading list will address critical race theory and include writings by and about Tutu, King, Gandhi, Mandela, Biko, and Malcolm X, as well as learning from the oral traditions of 1960s activists. The seminar format will allow for direct interaction and learning from international activists. Student assessment will include a research project that involves interviewing of actual participants in these historical events. We will also analyze the current OWS as a movement since we will learn and develop the tools for such analysis.
The following works will serve as the primary texts throughout the course
Biko, Steve. (1979, 2002). I write what I like: a selection of his writings edited with a personal memoir by Aelred Stubbs. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press.
D’Emilio, John. Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin
Haley, Alex. (1965, 1987). The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley. New York. Ballantine Books.
King, Martin Luther and Carson, Clayborne. (2001). The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. Grand Central Publishing.
King, Martin Luther. (1986). I have a dream: writing and speeches that changed the world. San Francisco. Harper.
Luthuli, Albert. (1962). Let my people go. New York. McGraw-Hill Books.
Mandela, Nelson. (1986). The struggle is my life: his speeches and writings brought together with historical documents and accounts of Mandela in prison by fellow-prisoner. New York: Pathfinder Press Back Bay Books.


Section 1: What is a mass movement?
Two mass movements that will be studied as examples are the Civil Rights Movement and the Anti-Apartheid Struggle. Leadership of movements includes Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Bantu Stephen Biko. We will trace these movements through the lives of the prominent leaders but will also take some behind the scenes views of their influences and strategies. A third movement, Occupy Wall Street, a recent development will be analyzed from the learnings of the two previously mentioned.
This course is designed to study the OWS movement as it is happening. There is recognition that the OWS movement is now a global phenomenon. It is also spreading around the US. There is every indication that the issues raised by this movement will not go away soon and in fact will not be easily addressed by politicians or by economists. I have developed and taught courses on Mass Movements so it is opportune to provide the same kind of analysis and discussion to all students and learners of contemporary events with the tools of academic research and creative critical thinking. Some of the questions that are relevant include:
• What is a mass movement?
• What are the stages of development of a mass movement?
• What can we learn from historical mass movements?
• How are mass movements structured?
• What strategies have mass movements employed?
• What are the problems that must be addressed by leaders?

Beginnings, Leaders, and Definitions
This is a course I developed and taught for a number of years. The content has always been new to modern students since many of these topics are not covered at all in high schools and some that are may be dealt with superficially so that certain impressions are left that are re-evaluated when the totality of its context becomes apparent. Rather than identify these learning moments which are numerous, I will present the material in detail as I build up the story behind the movements. Even though this is specifically addressing the civil rights movement in the United States and the anti-apartheid struggle of South Africa, these are examples and sounding boards for other movements of the past and especially insightful about the conditions and phases of movements in the present.
This course is presented for the ordinary citizen that was disempowered and feels hopeless in the face of economic and government domination of daily lives. While many live in a hopeless state there are always cases of courageous opposition in the face of overwhelming odds. In fact, most heroic stories are about overcoming social injustice. While many are lulled into a comfort of waiting for a hero or a savior some learn to take action out of necessity. This course will give form and structure as well as simple guidance to those who would consider taking action to change the world for the better,
Leaders.
We will refer to the book list and it will help to read the childhood chapters of King and Mandela. While there are debates about leaders being born or made, it will help to notice the childhood memories these leaders recount that shaped their understanding and inspired or motivated their own actions on the world stage. Many of the incidents of childhood are incidents that most ordinary children do encounter when they live in a world filled with injustice. Think of your own childhood and the incidents that shaped you and motivate you to take action.
The reading list has been specifically selected because they are autobiographies and are told in the words and voice of the leaders themselves. Nelson Mandela wrote his autobiography. Long Walk to Freedom while imprisoned on Robben Island. He smuggled out a copy of the manuscript before guards found it in his garden. The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley was delivered as he paced in his kitchen and Alex Haley documented his stories and memories. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. was assembled from his papers after his death by Clayborne Carson, who received praise for his attention to the detail of Martin Luther King’s own words. A biography of Steve Biko was written by Donald Woods, titled , Biko,, which formed the basis of the Richard Attenborough movie, Cry Freedom. I did not include Woods’ biography because it is in Woods’ words and is about Woods’ experience and not altogether focused on Biko. I have included Biko’s writings, I write what I like. It provides accurate accounts of his words. Albert Luthuli is the elder of the group and wrote his autobiography; Let my people go, in 1962. The only biography assigned is The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin. Bayard Rustin did not write an autobiography, but was a leader in the Civil Rights movement, a strategist, Martin Luther King Jr. mentor and advisor and also the organizer of the 1963 March on Washington where King delivered his “I have a dream” speech.
W.E.B. DuBois stated, “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line -- the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea. It was a phase of this problem that caused the Civil War.”
Margaret Meade said, “A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. ”
NAACP
On September 3, 1908 Mary Ovington read an article by William English Walling entitled "Race War in the North" in The Independent in which he described a race war of whites burning and looting black residents after two lynching in the hometown of Abraham Lincoln, Springfield, Illinois. The white mob behavior was supported by the town and the governor of the state where whites declared a southern solution in a northern town. Walling ended the article by issuing a call for a body of citizens to come to the aid blacks. Ovington responded to the call by writing Walling and meeting him with social worker Dr. Henry Moskowitz. The group decided to launch a national conference on the civil and political rights of African-Americans on the centennial of Lincoln’s birthday, February 12, 1909. Many responded to the “call” that eventually led to the formation of the National Negro Committee that held its first meeting in New York on May 31 and June 1, 1909. By May, 1910 the National Negro Committee second conference organized a permanent body known as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) where Ovington was appointed as its executive secretary. The initial members were seven white members and one black, W.E.B. DuBois. It would be seventy years before the NAACP has a black president.
ANC
According to E.S. Reddy, in GANDHI AND THE FORMATION OF THE AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS OF SOUTH AFRICA describing the formation of the ANC:
After Britain approved the formation of the Union of South Africa, thereby handing over power to the white minority, ignoring the appeals and betraying the trust of the African and Coloured people, four African attorneys in Johannesburg decided to convene a conference of all the African organisations in the country to form a national congress to defend African rights. The initiative for the project was taken by Pixley ka Izaka Seme.
Seme was born in Inanda, near Gandhi’s Phoenix Settlement, and he must have known of Gandhi who had been an attorney in Johannesburg before he decided to devote all his energies to the passive resistance movement.
It has become known recently from the memoirs of Pauline Podlashuk, who translated for Gandhi the last letter he had received from Count Tolstoy, that Seme visited Gandhi at the Tolstoy Farm in 1911 and had a long discussion during which Gandhi explained the Indian passive resistance movement.
On July 29, 1911, Gandhi’s newspaper, Indian Opinion, reported an interview with Seme on the progress of plans for the conference, which was held in Bloemfontein from 8 to 11 January 1912. The conference established the South African Native National Congress (later renamed the African National Congress).. The Reverend John Langalibalele Dube of Natal, founder of the Ohlange Industrial School, was elected President in his absence. Dube then sent a letter to “Chiefs and Gentlemen of the South African Native National Congress” accepting the honour and published it in his newspaper Ilanga lase Natal on February 2, 1912. Indian Opinion reproduced an extract from his letter in its issue of February 10, 1912, under the title “The Awakening of Africa.” It referred to Dube as “our friend and neighbor” and called the letter a manifesto.
OWS
Occupy Wall Street (OWS) started on September 17, 2011 in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City's Wall Street financial district as a direct result of the Arab Spring. The Canadian activist group, Adbusters, initiated the protest, which has led to Occupy protests and movements around the world. The main issues are social and economic inequality, greed, corruption and the undue influence of corporations on government—particularly from the financial services sector. The OWS slogan, We are the 99%, addresses the growing income inequality and wealth distribution in the U.S. between the wealthiest 1% and the rest of the population. To achieve their goals, protesters act on consensus-based decision made in general assemblies which emphasize direct action over petitioning authorities for redress.
Assignment 1
A Mass Movement is a special organizational model. It requires a number of conditions such as an inequity that affects a large mass of people. The first step of every Mass Movement is voicing a complaint. When a person identifies an inequity and asks for relief this is a normal human interaction. When the complaint is heard and addressed even if it is delayed the complainant can be satisfied. Every Mass Movement starts when an obvious inequity has been raised and raised and ignored and ignored. This is the first step of every Mass Movement.
TASK: Identify a few Mass Movements in history and identify the inequity that was obvious to many people but was ignored or brushed aside for a long time.