Protest: What Leads to Change? What Doesn’t?

When George Floyd was murdered on the street in Minneapolis by a policeman kneeling on his neck for nine minutes, protests against police violence erupted spontaneously in cities across the country. Policing had to be reformed. Public safety had to be rethought.

The protests died down. Not much changed. Could the result have been different?

Protest has been part of American history since before the Revolution. Two hundred fifty years ago this past December proper Bostonians stormed British ships in the harbor tossing their cargoes of tea (some 92,000 pounds of it) overboard to protest British taxes in particular and repressive conditions generally.

The current exhibition at Boston’s Old State House, Impassioned Destruction: Politics, Vandalism, and the Boston Tea Party, invites visitors to, “explore how Americans have used vandalism as a tool of protest throughout the centuries,” and consider, “When, if ever, do you believe it is justified to destroy property in the name of a cause?”

The exhibit notes that destruction of the tea was “highly divisive” at the time, and was criticized by both Benjamin Franklin and George Washington.

More interesting than the philosophical question of what is justified is the practical question of what is effective. How likely is it that the desired change will be achieved? It is at that point the question of what ends justify what means becomes relevant.

The last 60 years have seen a lot of protests. The sit-ins, boycotts, marches and rallies for civil rights. Burning the flag and draft cards during the Vietnam War. The riots and destruction that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King. The burning of neighborhoods in Los Angeles and Detroit after acts of police brutality. The chanting and chaining in support of the Equal Rights Amendment. And more recently, the Occupation of Wall Street to protest income inequality and the Black Lives Matter marches in response to continuing police violence.

Protest has taken several forms depending on the circumstances and the purpose. Any particular protest is usually a mixture.

• Explosions of spontaneous outrage; a visceral reaction to a specific event like the assassination of Martin Luther King.

• Planned, organized events to increase public pressure on those in authority to take a specific action (passing the Equal Rights amendment).

• Demonstrations to draw attention to a social or political condition (income inequality, climate change).

• Civil disobedience: breaking a law one believes is unjust, wrong, and limiting to one’s personal freedom. (Rosa Parks taking a seat at the front of the bus. Students integrating an all-white lunch counter at a Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina.)

To protest is to object. To disapprove. To demand change. Change that is in someone else’s power to make. Change you can’t do yourself. Protest is the application of force to persuade people who have power, to act and do things differently.

Protest combines force and persuasion. The two are different, but connected. Both are necessary.

The force of protest comes from numbers. How many people are in the streets? Are the numbers increasing? Or decreasing? The more people, the more pressure for change. Protest that attracts bystanders to join are more successful than protests that turn bystanders off.

Persuasion is related to both the importance and the possibility of the change being demanded. Both those in power and the public have to be persuaded that the change will be beneficial and can be achieved. Force has to do with numbers. Persuasion has to do with connection and ideas.

Small numbers of climate activists this past year shut down highways leading to airports, interrupted meetings of the Federal Reserve Board, disrupted the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and delayed matches at tennis tournaments.

The newspaper account of one action quoted the leader who, after working in traditional climate advocacy, had decided something louder was needed to spur change. “I realized there was a big need for disruptive direct action … It just gets so, so, so, so, so much more attention.”

But attention and support are not the same. Support is what is required. Those who missed their flights are probably less likely to feel kindly about climate protests. At the Met, “the crowd jeered the demonstrators and burst into applause” when they were escorted out and the curtains again opened.

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Outrage has a relatively short shelf life. Outrage can fuel massive demonstrations. To make a difference, however, that outrage has to shift from expressions of anger to demands for specific change. From protest to persuasion.

That is not an easy transition. What is the change that you want? To keep alive the force of the protest, that vision of what can be has to be specific, easy to understand, achievable, something people can relate to and be persuaded to support.

It is always easier to be against than to be for, to agree on what we don’t like, than to agree on what the alternative should be. Those who march arm and arm on the street and are unified in protest may not agree on what is next. The energy for change dissipates. The protest fades.

We saw this in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. The video of Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd’s neck incensed millions who saw it replayed on television and social media. Reminded again of our history of police brutality, they flooded the streets.

The most vocal of the protesters adopted “Defund the Police” as their demand for change. It was difficult to sell. Many, even those who live in neighborhoods where excessive force is more common, identify police with safety and protection when they need it. Even though the policy and program behind the slogan was more nuanced - that didn’t matter. The slogan didn’t resonate. The opportunity for change was missed.

In our age of social media and instant, ubiquitous communication, it is relatively easy to gather an unorganized crowd to protest. A time and a place go viral and people show up. The question, “What do you want?” is inevitable. For that question to be answered, for the protest to become a force for change, there has to be a specific answer to that question.

Protests that have an achievable goal, that can be articulated simply, are more likely to attract support and be successful. To keep protesting, people need to know what they are protesting for, not just what they are protesting against. The goal to make a “better world” doesn’t keep people marching in the streets. Nor does it give those with authority something tangible to respond to.

For the question, “What do you want?” to be answered in a way that is productive, protest has to have a structure and leaders who can speak for the protesters, negotiate with those who have authority to act and make agreements protesters will support. Protest may start spontaneously but to continue requires structure.

The marches and protests for civil rights were planned and led by recognized leaders and civil rights organizations. The National Organization for Women organized the efforts to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. The early Tea Party protests that accelerated the rightward shift of the Republican Party were nurtured by Americans for Prosperity and focused on repealing Obamacare.

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Civil disobedience resonates because the act is the goal. I am sitting in the front seat of the bus. We are here at the all-white lunch counter until we are served. We are making a fire and burning our draft cards. “Hell, no. We won’t go,” to fight your war.

Ghandi, the one person most responsible for India’s throwing off colonial rule, was a teacher and practitioner of non-violent civil disobedience. His march to the sea to make salt was the turning point in India’s drive for independence from England. Like the Tea Tax in the American colonies, the Salt Act of 1882 gave the British a monopoly in India over the making and selling of salt which they taxed heavily and sold at a high price. Affecting everyone, it was the hated symbol of British rule.

On March 2, 1930, Ghandi informed the British Viceroy that in 10 days he and others would begin breaking the salt law. Ten days later, Ghandi and a few dozen followers began to walk the 240 miles to the coast to make salt from seawater. By the time they reached the Arabian Sea three weeks later the walkers numbered in the tens of thousands.

On the morning of April 6, Ghandi picked up a lump of salt from the sand. British rule had been defied. In the month following, the simple act of civil disobedience was repeated by millions across India. More than 60,000 including Ghandi were arrested.

It was the beginning of the end for British rule in India. The following year when Ghandi was released from prison he met with the Viceroy and agreed to call off the protest in exchange for negotiations over the future of India.

The simplicity of the act of making salt was part of its power. It could be done by anyone. As an act of personal defiance of British rule, it was at once exhilarating, freeing and a commitment to national independence.

Gandhi taught his followers that the first step to freedom was to think of yourself as being free and to act as though you are free. “You are not free because you do not free yourself.” In making salt they freed themselves. As more and more participated, the authorities had no way of dealing with the numbers. The protests could neither be suppressed, nor ignored.

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Violence and protest are often associated. Both violence by authorities and violence by protesters. Violent police reaction to peaceful protest often results in increased public support for the protest. Violence on the part of protesters has usually diminished public support.

When British led police “viciously beat” peaceful demonstrators at the Dharasana Salt Works, the report by an American journalist turned international opinion against England.

The photos on the front pages of newspapers across America in May, 1963, of police dogs in Birmingham, Alabama attacking non-resisting teenage civil rights marchers, led later that summer to President Kennedy proposing a federal law enforcing civil rights (it passed the following year) and the March on Washington.

In Iran, dancing has become a form of protest against the fundamentalist Islamic government and the lifestyle it has imposed after the government took action against an old man for dancing and singing in the marketplace and sharing his joy and happiness on social media, Iran International reported this past December.

The action backfired. The post went viral. His few thousand followers jumped to more than a million and “social media is flooded with videos of individuals, both young and old, mimicking his dance in solidarity.” One of the conservative newspapers in the country sarcastically titled its editorial comments, “How To Make Guerillas Out Of Singers”.

The violence and destruction by protesters in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles in 1965 and the accompanying street slogan, “Burn, Baby, Burn”, halted the progress of civil rights for some time. Rep. James Clyburn, Assistant Democratic Leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, has said, “That’s what destroyed the student movement back in the 1960.”

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Protest is a public act on a public stage. Activists rising up to challenge existing conditions and the authority that created them, or just allowed them to exist. Success depends on the ability of those on stage to motivate those out in the audience to leave their seats and join them on stage. To move from observing to acting, from being bystanders to becoming participants. .

That transformation has to be the necessary focus of planning, strategy and tactics for protest of any kind to make a difference.