How Do Protests and Social Movements Effect Change?

Salons at Stowe

How Do Protests and Social Movements Effect Change?

October 13, 2016

David Canton, Professor of History at Connecticut College, and Jeffrey Ogbar, Professor of History at the University of Connecticut, led a conversation on the history and contemporary face of protests. They described similarities between the backlash against the Civil Rights Movement and the criticisms of Black Lives Matter. At the height of the Civil Rights Movement, roughly 63% of Americans thought the movement was “moving too fast”; today, only 43% support Black Lives Matter. Dr. Ogbar said that as long as there are protests there will be criticisms, and that protests are meant to be unpopular initially.

Participants discussed how social movements, particularly those against racism, make change. Dr. Canton said that the power of social movements is that they direct energy on institutions — changing the police, schools, or the school-to-prison pipeline. The key is to focus on institutions, not individual acts of racism or oppression. It is in cultural shifts that we will see lasting change.

Inspiration to Action

Learn about the history of protest in the U.S.; learn about the Black Panther Party, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and contemporary movements
Talk with elders in your community who participated in social movements; talk with those in your community who currently participate in social movements
Focus on culture and institutions, not individual behavior

Location Harriet Beecher Stowe Center

Doors Open 5:30 - 7:30 PM

Program 6 - 7:30 PM

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Isabella Beecher Hooker

Isabella Holmes Beecher Hooker (1822-1907)
An ardent member of the woman’s suffrage movement, Isabella Holmes Beecher Hooker joined in the cause along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

Isabella was the first child of Lyman Beecher and his second wife, Harriet Porter Beecher.

Isabella began her education at Catharine Beecher’s Hartford Female Seminary and lived with her sister Mary Perkins. In 1841 she married John Hooker, a descendant of Thomas Hooker, the founder of Hartford. John Hooker was a lawyer and an abolitionist.

In the early 1860s Isabella got involved in the woman’s suffrage movement. Isabella joined Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony as a member of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association in 1869. She was a founding member of the Connecticut Woman’s Suffrage Association. Isabella’s ideas of equality were influenced by John Stuart Mills’ On Liberty and the Subjection of Women.

In 1871, Isabella organized the annual convention of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association in Washington D.C. and presented her argument before the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States Senate. Her husband, John Hooker, believed in his wife and supported her activities. He helped Isabella draft a bill to the Connecticut Legislature giving married women the same property rights as their husbands. The bill passed in 1877. Isabella annually submitted a bill granting women the right to vote, but it did not pass in her lifetime.