Interorganizational Conflict in the Southern Civil Rights Movement

Abstract

Moderate social movement organizations (SMOs) often denounce radical SMOs for statements and actions that threaten to alienate potential sources of external support. This paper analyzes the development of such interorganizational hostility in the Southern civil rights movement over the issues of Communist participation, the Vietnam War, and black power. In demonstrating how the moderate SMOs' perceived need for external support aggravated divisions over these issues, this paper calls attention to a major source of interorganizational hostility in the movement that previous work has overlooked.