McCauley Lecture: Does Anybody Really Know When the Civil Rights Movement Began?

Does anybody really know when the Civil Rights Movement began? You will by the end of this presentation!

For the first time in public, Dr. Edward N. Maliskas makes the case that America’s Civil Rights Movement began in Washington County, Maryland.

Maliskas begins by offering for the audience’s consideration a short list of commonly cited candidates for the honor of being the birthplace of the movement. To be sure, they are important milestones, but do they meet the academic criteria for what constitutes the inception of a social movement?

The case begins with defining “social movement.” A quick list details the primary characteristics of a mass social movement, including the leadership, coordination, and strategies necessary to produce and sustain a movement as massive as the Civil Rights Movement.

Maliskas concludes that the only group sufficiently powerful and connected to begin the Movement did so with a large, passionate, and self-aware event held in Western Maryland in the early 1950s.