Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department or Program
Sociology
Advisor
Dunn, Jennifer L
Abstract
This work builds on Verta Taylor’s theory on social movement continuity to explain abeyance structures within total institutions. The work is grounded in the reinterpretation of Doug McAdam’s data from Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency (1982) and in new data on the Black Catholic Rights movement from 1968 to the 1990s. Together these cases outline a type of abeyance structure within social movements that holds over the culture, resources, and strategies of a movement by focusing on more narrow oppositional interest. Using the five characteristics of an abeyance structure the research will discuss how the Black Catholic Rights movement became a bridge for future Civil Rights movement work.