Movement Action Plan Case Study

Movement Action Plan: Calls for Reparations

This blog invites you to:

Be introduced to the concept of the “movement action plan”
View a historical timeline of some people engaged with abolition of slavery to give a perspective of one significant movement
Link the theory to the historical reality
Link these centuries old events to the racism in the U.S. today
Invite you to consider your role today.

That is a lot and this blog is imperfect, partial, and one small perspective. And here it is…

A “movement action plan” or MAP for short, is a model proposed by Bill Moyer in Doing Democracy. MAP sets forth a set of stages, sometimes iterative rather than sequential, through which social movements move if they are not sufficiently interrupted. The following diagram illustrates the stages and the prominence during them of the four roles of social action [link to four roles blog].

That’s the theory. One key aspect of the MAP is that stage 5 coincides with two widely differing experiences: 1) some activists have a sense of failure at the same time that 2) the general population begins to see the need for change.

To put this in context, let’s take a look at a few historical persons engaged with abolition of slavery – Benjamin Lay (BL), John Woolman (JW), Lucretia Mott (LM), Harriet Tubman (HT), and Other (O) – and events that point to the need now for reparations for descendants of Africans enslaved in the U.S..

As you do this, for a few of the rows, consider:

Which of the eight stages might this event represent in the arc of the movement?
Which of the four activist roles, if any, do you see the person playing at that time: Reformer, Rebel, Citizen, and/ or Change Agents?

*Year*	BL	JW	LM	HT	O	*Event*
1619					O	The White Lion, an English privateer operating, brings the first enslaved Africans to the English colony of Virginia, a year before the arrival of the Mayflower in New England.
1682	BL					Benjamin Lay born a Quaker in England
1688					O	Germantown Quaker petition is first protest against enslavement of African made by a religious body in the Thirteen Colonies
1718- 1731	BL					Benjamin lives in Barbados, which is said to be one of the cruelest places for enslaved people in the British-American slave trade; while there, he nearly beats to death 2 people he enslaves; he becomes such a strong proponent for abolition of slavery that slave-holders in Barbados threaten his life if he does not leave the West Indies
1720		JW				John Woolman born to Quaker parents in Burlington County, New Jersey
1732	BL					Benjamin relocates to Abington, Pennsylvania – just north of Philadelphia
1738	BL					At tri-state regional Quaker gathering (known as Philadelphia Yearly Meeting) in Burlington, NJ, Benjamin supplements what some describe as a “diatribe” against slavery with stabbing with a sword a Bible filled with poke-berry juice to represent blood of enslaved people
1743		JW				John writes a bill of sale for an enslaved person
1746		JW				John’s first ministry trip – 3 mos. 1500 miles round trip to North Carolina
1754		JW				John publishes “Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes”
1758					O	Tri-state regional Quaker group known as Philadelphia Yearly Meeting urges Friends (Quakers) to free enslaved people
1759					O	Philadelphia Yearly Meeting makes selling or importing of enslaved people cause for disownment
1759	BL					Benjamin Lay dies one week after above
1772		JW				John Woolman dies
1776					O	Philadelphia Yearly Meeting makes owning of enslaved people cause for disownment
1780					O	Pennsylvania becomes first state in the new nation to abolish all slavery within its borders
1793			LM			Lucretia born to Quaker parents on Nantucket, Massachusetts
1818/ 1820			LM			Lucretia becomes recorded Quaker minister at age 28 speaking on abolition of slavery and, later, women’s rights; she later meets opposition when she speaks of abolition of slavery; Quakers attempt to strip Lucretia of her ministry and membership
1822				HT		Araminta Ross, later known as Harriet Tubman, born Maryland’s eastern shore, to an enslaved mother, making her enslaved by law
1840			LM			Lucretia and husband travel to Anti-Slavery Convention in London
1840’s					O	Philadelphia Yearly Meeting discourages its members from participation in anti-slavery movement (mid-1840s)
1849				HT		Harriet escapes to Philadelphia
1850					O	Fugitive Slave Act passes requiring that freedom seeking enslaved people, even if they are in a free state, be returned to their so-called owners. The act also makes the federal government responsible for finding, returning, and trying freedom seekers.
1850- 1860				HT		Harriet serves as a conductor on the Underground Railroad; in 1858 and 1859, she repeatedly tells people that she had rescued 50 to 60 people in eight or nine trips; this was before her very last mission, in December 1860, when she brought away seven people
1857			LM			Lucretia and family move from center city Philadelphia to Cheltenham in northeast Philadelphia
1859					O	John Brown executed for inciting riot of enslaved people in Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, USA
1857- 1865				HT		From their Cheltenham home, Lucretia’s family aided 400 freedom seekers
1861- 1865					O	Civil War fought over the economics of chattel slavery and political control of that system
1865					O	Chattel slavery ended in U.S. with adoption of 13^th amendment to the U.S. constitution
1880			LM			Lucretia Mott dies
1913				HT		Harriet Tubman dies

Who are the Reformers, Rebels, Citizens, and Change Agents?

Which actions fall in stage 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8?

What happens to each of these people and events when viewed in the scope of the wider movement? (For instance, John Woolman is often lauded among Quakers while Benjamin Lay was disowned by his Quaker meetings multiple times! To what extent were Friends’ influenced by Lay’s actions before Woolman came on the scene?)

What happens if we include Reconstruction, Jim Crow, New Jim Crow, redlining, and other atrocities in this litany of acts against Black people in the U.S. and elsewhere?

Now, fast forward from 1913 to the sentiment Toni Morrison expresses in this excerpt from the 1989 Time interview entitled The Pain Of Being Black, which is as true today as it was then:

Question: In your contemporary novels you portray harsh confrontation between black and white. In Tar Baby a character says, “White folks and black folks should not sit down and eat together or do any of those personal things in life.” It seems hopeless if we can’t bridge the abysses you see between sexes, classes, races.

Answer: I feel personally sorrowful about black-white relations a lot of the time because black people have always been used as a buffer in this country between powers to prevent class war, to prevent other kinds of real conflagrations.

If there were no black people here in this country, it would have been Balkanized. The immigrants would have torn each other’s throats out, as they have done everywhere else. But in becoming an American, from Europe, what one has in common with that other immigrant is contempt for me — it’s nothing else but color. Wherever they were from, they would stand together. They could all say, “I am not that.” So in that sense, becoming an American is based on an attitude: an exclusion of me.

It wasn’t negative to them — it was unifying. When they got off the boat, the second word they learned was “nigger.” Ask them — I grew up with them. I remember in the fifth grade a smart little boy who had just arrived and didn’t speak any English. He sat next to me. I read well, and I taught him to read just by doing it. I remember the moment he found out that I was black — a nigger. It took him six months; he was told. And that’s the moment when he belonged, that was his entrance. Every immigrant knew he would not come as the very bottom. He had to come above at least one group — and that was us.

What does this say to you about your unique and vital role at this particular moment in history?