Framing Theory: Analysis Of The Civil Rights Movement

Framing theory was chosen for the analysis of the civil rights movement because it’s understood as a theory that places “[...] emphasis on the intentional ways in which movement activists seek to construct their self-presentation to draw support from others” (Oliver & Johnson, 2000:1). It’s seen as a tool that allows movements to present their movement to the general public, an image or symbol that might have be considered as relatable to a number of people; in order to receive support. It’s a behavior that provides people with the opportunity to make sense of the grievances that confronts them, as well as their daily lives (Oliver & Johnson, 2000:5). It’s “[...] a thought organizer, highlighting certain events and facts as important and

One could also look at the women’s rights movement during that period of time, it focused on women’s right but did not necessarily tackle the intersectional issues surrounding women such as race. As it was expressed in the article, “What a Good Idea! Frames and Ideologies in Social Movement Research”, framing theory “[enables] individuals to locate, perceive, identify and label occurrences’ and ‘selectively punctuate and encode objects, situations, events, experiences and sequences of action within one’s present and past environment” (Oliver & Johnson, 2000:4). For black women, there can be instances or events that can be considered as being an issue of race but then again, an issue can also stem from gender inequalities. The issue of identifying one’s grievance as being either racial or gender based will be further discussed in the

Framing theory also supplies a level of rationality “[...] to an array of symbols, images, and arguments, linking them through an underlying organizing idea that suggest what is essential - what consequences and values are at stake”. As stated in the article, The Influence of Social Movement on Articulations of Race and Gender in Black Women’s Autobibliography, “[the] Black community’s aspirations were articulated ‘almost exclusively’ by Black men, while Black women’s concerns, problems, and objectives were rarely discussed.” (Brush, 1999:124). As previously stated, this can be seen as an issue surrounding the framing of the civil rights movement, due to the fact that not only were these men able to identify what was considered as being important for the purposes of the movement, they were also ‘almost exclusively’ the ones expressing the grievances of faced by the black community, which may have made them susceptible to making generalization as to what exactly were the grievances of the black community as a whole. bell hooks also expressed this idea, whereby she states that“[...] the history of our struggle as Black people is made synonymous with the efforts of Black males to have patriarchal power and privilege” (Brush, 1999:124). Since there were patriarchal