Second-Order Cultural Effects of Civil Rights on Southern Nonprofit Organizations: The Atlanta YMCAs

Abstract

Mayer Zald identified the mechanisms of adjustment that allowed the Chicago Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) to adapt to a changing environment. Changes in the YMCA in Atlanta, Georgia, that accompanied a division into an integrated organization for middle class residents and an inner city Black organization also reveal accommodation to environmental flux. However, in this case, the changes were due to the anachronistic persistence of segregation in the South, the strengths of southern, historically Black institutions and traditions, and the transformation of cultural understandings that accompanied the civil rights movement. Years of acrimony, alternating with stalemate, led to a solution that pernitted the survival of both organizations. It is in the cultural environment of the South that similar arrangements develop between historically Black colleges and predominantly White colleges and universities. During the 1990s, by law (and often by circumstances of geography), historically Black institutions include Whites but are recognized as uniquely serving Black constituents.