effective in inciting change. As a result of the sit-ins, many businesses and traders
were forced to change their racist policies and rules to ones which were far less
discriminatory.
The example of the sit-ins is not the most unconventional form of participation
studied by this report, but it can already be seen that there is a higher level of
unconventionality in this case study as opposed to those mentioned above as
shown by Figure 2, allowing for close comparison and a more accurate analysis
of trends in cases which will help to prove this report’s hypothesis. This increased
level of unconventionality can be explained by the creativity and originality of
the type of participation used, particularly as sit-ins were not a commonly used
form of protest prior to the civil rights movement.
8.2). Why did this event happen?
The sit-ins occurred as a result of African-American citizens feeling as though
they were not a part of the legal decision making in the country, and a distinct
lack of trust in their political institutions, which had, by now, gone back on the word of the 15 th amendment (1870), which “sought to protect the voting rights
of Black men after the Civil War” (History.com, 2009). This lack of trust continued
to develop until citizens felt that action had to be taken to remedy these issues.
This can be referred to as an “affective component” of distrust (Krishnamurphy,
2021), something which takes place when, concerning political institutions, “we
feel that we can’t count on them to fulfil their commitments”, which in this case
was ensuring equality and safety for all in American society, not just whites. This
affective component of distrust was an influential factor in the polarisation
African-American citizens felt against white citizens. The extent of polarisation
that African-American citizens experienced (which was not unfounded, since
70
Made with FlippingBook HTML5