ABSTRACT
Social movements are a hallmark of democratic political life throughout the world. Regardless of the circumstance – the location of the movement, the issues that prompt it, or the people involved in them – all social movements share a single, general goal: change. Social movements are a form of collective, political action; though, as we will later see, the forms and types of actions vary. We set apart race-based social movements as a way of singling out movements aimed at changing – in part or whole – the manner in which societies formally or informally institutionalize the social and political relations among the disparate racial groups that live within a society. Talking about race-based social movements considerably narrows the terrain of the kinds of social movements we might generally discuss. This is to say, studying race-based social movements limits the scope of our considerations to movements that have taken, and continue to take, place in societies where race has historically been a salient construct. Given this description of social movements in general, and race-based movements in particular, this essay focuses first on the way that race is framed as the principal basis of social movements, and second, the way that race is deployed as an organizing and mobilizing tool for such movements.
