The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the Streets of Seattle (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the Streets of Seattle Ann Larabee The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the Streets of Seattle. T. V. Reed . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005. 362 pp., ISBN 0-8166-3771-7, $25.00. This helpful book situates several major protest movements, from the civil rights movement to the Seattle antiglobalization protest, within a discussion of their cultural production. In this way, T. V. Reed hopes to remedy what he sees as a neglect of culture—defined here as meaning-making processes—in the study of social movements carried out by social scientists. Thus, the book makes a strong contribution to a growing body of work on radicalism that is informed by cultural studies inquiry and has an interest in cultural texts such as protest songs, essays, and posters. A professor of English at Washington State University, Reed argues that the cultural production of social movements is at least as important as their social, political, and economic impacts. Reed devotes chapters to the songs of the civil rights movement, the agitprop of the Black Panthers, the poetry of the Women's Rights movement, the murals of the Chicano/a movement, the films of the American Indian movement, the charity concerts of the famine relief movement, the graphic art of ACT UP, the literary-critical practices associated with the environmental justice movement, and the use of new media by antiglobalization protesters. The strategy with each case study is briefly to introduce the history and aims of the movement for the nonspecialist before moving into a discussion of the cultural form in question. Reed associates each movement with its most well-known artistic, literary, dramatic, or musical form, arguing that the more popular, visible forms of cultural production had important functions both in addressing an external audience and nurturing emotional connections to the political cause within the movement itself. For example, Reed describes how the freedom songs of the civil rights movement evolved from gospel songs and spirituals to attract "respectable church-going folks" and older members of the community by tying the movement to a history of suffering and resistance. Popular rhythm and blues, such as the songs of Ray Charles, were adapted to appeal to black youth. The resulting freedom songs provided a buffer of solidarity against fear and terror, helped recruit new members, conveyed the purpose of the movement to both insiders and [End Page 177] outsiders, provided pleasure and relaxation, and built a collective identity. So successful was the strategy of song that it has had a strong influence on many subsequent social movements. As Reed points out, "'We Shall Overcome' belongs now to the world" (1). In the final chapter, Reed discusses cultural approaches to the analysis of social movements, finding much common ground with Michael Denning's now classic discussion of labor activism during the Great Depression.1 Both writers are interested in the intersection of politics and culture and in the production and reception of cultural forms. Reed spends time clarifying definitions of "political," "cultural," and "social" and their hybrids, such as "cultural politics." Perhaps most usefully, he sets out a schema of ten primary functions of cultural forms within social movements including empowering, historicizing, informing, and enacting. Those who study the production of cultural forms by radical groups may find Reed's taxonomy helpful in identifying the many uses of such forms in generating meaning both inside and outside the group. Reed is more interested in the reformist, rather than radical, use of cultural forms, focusing on political address within the social imaginary of the public sphere, primarily in the nation-state, but extending in the final chapters to global networks. In this way, he joins writers like Brian Norman, whose recent book on the protest essay argues that this form aspires "to national unity by addressing, not repressing, divisions within the citizenry."2 A key question for these writers is influence: to what extent the reception, adaptation, and diffusion of cultural forms generated by social movements can bring about social, political, and cultural change in the mainstream. But as Reed ruefully...