i	Sociology 432: Social Movements

Herbert H. Haines

"Black Radicalization and the Funding of Civil Rights"

Chapter 33 (440-449) in McAdam & Snow.

This is an interesting research report because it begins with a puzzle: we could make two opposite predictions about the outcome of radical protest groups on social movement success. It pulls together some good data and lets the evidence decide which prediction is right. And while the evidence points fairly clearly towards one of the two outcomes, the author is careful about not drawing too broad a conclusion based on this one research study.

So, to understand fully what this article accomplishes you need to be able to summarize:

• What are the two competing predictions about the effects of radical protest on moderate groups? How/why would each outcome happen?
• What evidence favors one of the predictions over the other?
• What limitations should we consider before we draw final conclusions about the effects of radical protest?

How do these processes help us understand:

• The success of violent and confrontational tactics we read about in the Gamson reading?
• The cycle of protest we read about in our first Tarrow reading?