Religion and Social Protest Movements

Description

What role has religion played in social protest movements? This important book examines how activists have used religious resources such as liturgy, prayer, song and vestments with a focus on the following global case studies: The mid-twentieth century US civil rights movement. The late twentieth century antiabortion movement in the United States of America. The early twenty-first century water protectors’ movement at Standing Rock, North Dakota. Indian independence led by Mohandas Gandhi in the early 1930s. The Polish Solidarity movement of the 1980s. The South African anti-apartheid movement of the 1980s and 1990s. Prayer as a sacred act is usually associated with piety and pacifism; however, it can be argued that those who pray in public while protesting are more likely to encounter violence. Drawing on journalistic accounts, participant reflections, and secondary literature, Religion and Social Protest Movements offers both historical and theoretical perspectives on the persistent correlation of the use of public prayer with an increase in conflict and violence. This book is an important read for students and researchers in history and religious studies, and those in related fields such as sociology, African-American studies, and Native American studies. Cover Half Title Endorsements Title Page Copyright Page Contents List of Figures Acknowledgments Introduction Of stories and theory Claims and interventions The woman in prayer again Notes 1. Faithful fasting: the Indian independence movement India's religious context Gandhi's religious formation South African religious and political roots Violence and nonviolence in political campaigns Gandhi's 1924 Hindu-Muslim fast The Salt March The Dalit fasts Fasting through independence and partition Political and religious unity through to the end Religion as a coercive element of Gandhi's fasts Notes 2. Invoking violence: the civil rights movement Central argument and frame First forays into public prayer protest Prayer pilgrimage for civil rights Breadth of 1957s prayer activity Emerging uses of prayer From Berkeley to Burgland - prayer protest rising The period of piety: 1962-66 Violence rising in 1963 Activist and status quo prayers in contrast 1966: protest prayer ascendant Prayer persistent, potent, and descending Gender and violence in public protest prayer Respectability and freedom through public prayer Notes 3. Sacred surety: divine mandate and violence in the antiabortion movement Early twentieth-century abortion context Roe and its aftermath Operation Rescue emergent Violence and Operation Rescue Violence of the 1990s Christian Identity's influence Sacred surety redux Sidewalk confrontations Theories of religion and violence Sacred surety at work Notes 4. The Pope and the Black Madonna: ritual, word, and movement in the Polish Solidarity movement Introducing the Black Madonna The ritual of the Black Madonna pilgrimage Arresting the Black Madonna and the aftermath A Pope's visit Solidarity surges Religious resources under martial law The Pope returns The Black Madonna out from under martial law The Pope and Poland a third time over Limits and legacies of ceremonial revolution Notes 5. Imagining the impossible: the anti-apartheid movement of the 1980s and 1990s Contextualizing Boesak's prayer The Black Consciousness Movement Gender and Black Consciousness Religious leaders rising Singing in the future Funereal protest The Manyano movement Religion in protest ascendant Religious imagination fully realized Notes 6. Prayers permeated: water protectors and the #NoDAPL movement History of indigenous protest The Mni Sose The pipeline struggle #NoDAPL prayer and protest Violence intensified Youth, internal tension, and conflict Camps closing Of success and failure Religion at the story's center Notes Conclusion: a model for analyzing religious resources in social movements Stories' import Social movements and religious studies methodology Classroom connections Notes Index