The Civil Rights Movement and the Right to Vote: Black Protest, Segregationist Violence and the Audience

Abstract

This study investigates the effect of segregationist murders, in conjunction with black protest, on federal passage of black voting-rights policies. Using time-series regression techniques, I find that white violence diminished federal responsiveness to black protest from the '30s through the end of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration. But by President Lyndon B. Johnson's administration and the passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, violence stimulated government response to black protest. I argue that the historically contingent nature of the violence effect is attributable to the changing nature of the audience. Segregationist violence seems to have helped the movement win Southern suffrage only when the audience was attentive, sympathetic and involved in the policy conflict.