Page 181 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

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Political Organizations
framework for gun control lobbying. It was premised on a fundamental
reframing of gun policy as a motherhood and family issue. Mothers
and others concerned with the health of children should care about
gun control, the march claimed. This reframing, along with low-cost
communication techniques and, eventually, coverage by mass media,
proved enormously successful at mobilizing citizens not engaged in the
traditional contest over crime and the Second Amendment. This fact
made the Million Mom March unusual, not only in the gun control
arena but more generally in the history of political marches.
Research shows that two phases have existed in the evolution of
American political marches and rallies. The first major march on
Washington did not occur until 1894, when “Coxey’sArmy” rallied over
economic issues. Between the Coxey march and the early marches in-
volving civil rights and social policy in the 1960s and 1970s, marches
tended to attract citizens who were not participants in traditional, in-
stitutional politics and who felt that their interests were not adequately
represented through traditional means. 138 Marches on Washington typ-
ically constituted an outlet for those who felt disenfranchised, and as a
result marches and rallies were often viewed as illegitimate acts with the
potential to undermine democracy. For many political elites and mem-
bers of the public, marches carried with them the aura of potentially
violent discontent, constitutional threat, and even revolution. 139
Duringtheperiodofheightenedpoliticalactivityofthe1960sand’70s,
this view of marches and protest activities changed, as public demon-
strations moved from the periphery to the mainstream of politics. These
events increasingly engaged citizens who were otherwise well enfran-
chised and active in traditional institutionalized politics. 140 Rather than
being an extreme act on the boundaries of democratic acceptability, the
march became a mainstream and even routine feature of normal politics,
especially by the 1980s.
Contemporary survey research conducted in the 1990s shows a pos-
itive correlation between participation in traditional institutional poli-
tics and participation in protest and rally activity, as well as a positive

138
Norman T. Gilbert, “The Mass Protest Phenomenon: An Examination of Marches
on Washington,” Ph.D. diss, Northern Illinois University, 1971.
139
Lucy Grace Barber, “Marches on Washington, 1894–1963: National Political Demon-
strations and American Political Culture,” Ph.D. diss., Brown University, May 1996.
140
Jerome Skolnick, ed., The Politics of Protest and Confrontation: A Staff Report to the
National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence (Washington, D.C.:
Government Printing Office, 1969).
164