ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the role of nonprofit organizations in social change movements, starting with social movements from the turn of the century (labor rights movement), midcentury (Civil Rights Movement), and then discussing contemporary social change movements (Occupy). Civil society provides the larger context or background in which social movements and voluntary activism occurs. Social movements, also referred to as protest movements or protest politics, are often the only mechanism by which a disenfranchised group can engage in the mainstream system. The chapter also discusses the role that nonprofit organizations play in social movements and presents examples of historic and modern social movements in the United States and abroad. The achievements of that social movement are common features in the American workplace, including hourly limitations on the workweek, reasonable wages, support for the unemployed, restrictions on child labor, and more humane workplaces.
