Last Saturday, I attended the Rose Scholars discussion on activism. I am currently taking a class on social movements so it was interesting to hear people’s responses on the subject. The two points that came up during this discussion that I found particularly interesting were whether social movements are born to die and the role of the government in activism. It’s impossible to keep a social movement going after achieving its major goals because people won’t feel the same level of urgency despite the fact that there are most likely other issues remaining. The Civil Rights movement, for example, was unable to keep up the momentum after achieving key legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Although there were other issues that still needed to be addressed, they were unable to organize effectively around new goals. However, we can see how the movement for black rights has manifested itself throughout the history of America. Although it would be amazing if we could have immediately gone from the abolition of slavery to the treatment of black Americans as full citizens, it takes time for society to change. Today, we see the modern manifestation of this movement through the Black Lives Matter movement. Although movements die, we see the same issues come up decades later because we still live in a very unequal society. The other point was that I think that widespread change has to happen within the political system. During the discussion, there were arguments made against this because the political system is not always effective or fair. However, if a movement succeeds in passing legislation, it grants legitimacy to their cause. If the government then violates this law, one could pursue the issue through the courts. Even though the courts are also not always fair, there would be an extreme backlash and the government would lose legitimacy if it did not follow the laws set forth in its own Constitution.