Was the Civil Rights Movement Successful? Tracking and Understanding Black Views

Was the modern civil rights movement successful? I depart from traditional approaches that judge success in terms of political inclusion and policy response and instead ask ordinary blacks what they thought. Using 1968 survey data, I find that while a slight majority (58%) believed that the movement successfully reduced racial discrimination, a sizable share (42%) saw failure. It seems most accurate to conclude that both perspectives resonated with large segments of the black population. I next examine who thought the movement a success and uncover that blacks of higher economic standing had the most faith in the movement's achievements. This result supports critics who thought that the poor were left behind by the movement's gains. Finally, while there was overall stability from 1968 to 2000 in opinion, the mid-1980s represented the nadir in thinking the movement successful. This development appears to have been a reaction to the racially hostile Reagan administration and the worsening economic position of blacks in the 1980s. Views on the civil rights movement, thus, are a living memory that can be altered by contemporary deleterious developments. I conclude by arguing that conceptualizations of success should be grounded in how movements impact the everyday lives of their constituency.