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Struggling to be Noticed: The Civil Rights Movement as an Academic Agenda Setter

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2008

Harwood K. McClerking  and
Tasha S. Philpot
Harwood K. McClerking
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
Tasha S. Philpot
Affiliation:
University of Texas at Austin
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Extract

While the study of Black politics in the American context has not been a top priority in political science, it is indisputable that this topic in general is more likely to be discussed in the discipline's journals in recent decades than in the more distant past. What accounts for this noticeable increase in prominence? How did the study of Black politics move from total obscurity to occupying a more significant (although still relatively marginalized) position within mainstream political science? To answer these questions, we draw a parallel between politics and political science. Specifically, we posit that the increased focus on African American politics is due to Black agency in the form of social movement activity, which reached its zenith during the civil rights movement. Before the civil rights movement, we note as numerous others have, that the racially conservative views of American society in the nineteenth century resulted in Black politics being an understudied area. We argue, however, that as social movement activity increased the salience of racial issues in America, so too did it raise the importance of race for political scientists.

Type
The Profession
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 41 , Issue 4 , October 2008 , pp. 813 - 817
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 2008

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