What Is The Power Devaluation Theory Related To The Rise Of The Civil Rights Movement

The civil rights movement was an impactful and vital movement in the United States whose goal was to end racial segregation and discrimination against African Americans and to guarantee their equal rights. The movement can be traced back to the early 20th century, but it gained significant momentum in the mid-1950s, with the increase of discrimination like segregation and racial violence. The decisions that these activists acted on suggested that they were influenced by past social movements and organizations like the Abolitionist movement, NAACP, and the Reconstruction era, where the community each had the same goal of fighting back against racial discrimination. The power devaluation theory explains the reasoning behind a group discriminating

Through the movement, activists were able to successfully create lasting changes legally, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibited discrimination based on race and removed barriers to voting for African Americans. In response to the rulings made, it is said that “each sought to impose its version of reality on the society, and thereby each hoped to shape the reality within which the other had to function.” (Bloom & Hatcher, 2019, 12) Even with the amount of backlash, whether it be violent or not, the movement continued forward with their actions, knowing that there needs to be change for a better future. The Ku Klux Klan became the main cause of the obstacles in their path to success, for example, they “invented an education crisis at a time when the quality of the educational system was actually improving. High school diplomas were at one time rare commodities but were becoming increasingly common, especially among Catholic immigrants and African Americans.” (Estep, 2017, 443) While the movement did not fully end the fight against racial discrimination, it has created a long-lasting impact on our history and influenced the way we perceive how our society is today. It remains a defining moment in American history and serves as a reminder of the ongoing struggle to create a more inclusive and

The three types of power devaluation are political, economic, and status. This means that they have representation in the government, are financially secure, and have social influence. As Rory McVeigh explains, power devaluation “reduces a group’s capacity to maintain its advantages within established institutions, and many individuals are likely to be open to any form of collective action that is oriented toward maintaining and/or restoring their power.” (McVeigh, 2009, 43) Based on this, they believe that their status power is being hurt and the influential power that they worked hard to achieve over the years is now going to be affected by the increase of opportunities that are being made for marginalized communities overall. Worried about their power being threatened, they are going to find any way to reject different motions that would help which is why they oppose bilingual education, “threats to traditional white privileges, at least as seen by white supremacists, are critical factors facilitating greater levels of reactive protest.” (Boutcher et al., 2017, 12) This theory helps us understand how and why social movements emerge, how they interact with dominant groups, and the challenges they face in their pursuit of social change. Understanding the dynamic is important because when