What starts here changes the world

An Examination into the History and Effectiveness of Protests in the US

Jared Beardsley

24 August 2024

Introduction

On April 24 of this year, I walked into UT Austin’s campus to see the south lawn had been blocked off by cones and police tape. Several police cruisers were posted around campus, with barriers blocking off the south lawn, the front of UT tower, and other places to assemble crowds. A protest had been scheduled that day to begin at 11 on the south end of Speedway, put forth by several student groups to demand Divestment from defense contractors and other businesses who profited off the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip. The protest was scheduled to begin near speedway and then form an encampment on the South Mall, following the model of other universities such as Columbia, who also demanded divestment from companies that profit off killing. Things didn’t go according to plan for UT Austin students, as they were met with police in riot gear occupying their meeting place, and a last minute ban on the protest from University President Jay Hartzell. Protesters were pushed back onto the speedway and blocked by police calvary and squad cars when arrests began. Police officers would grab whoever stood out in a crowd, zip tie their hands, and push them into unmarked vans. The protest pushed towards the south mall anyway, where an additional 53 students were arrested with a similar opportunistic nature. After hours of stand off between students and armed officers, a dispersal order was sent to all university students, promising arrest for anyone who remained on the south mall. The encampment model died in Texas before it even began. 

Personally, I was shocked at the brutal backlash of my school, and how many people, students and faculty, seemed to be perfectly fine with the treatment of students. After all, there was no violent intention in the protest, and UT has such a large progressive population. UT Austin is no stranger to student led protests for civil rights and social justice, so what made this protest any different? It’s not like the Gaza protests invented encampments or occupying portions of a school. It’s not like the university encampments were harmful for the university itself. In Texas especially, Governor Greg Abbot has previously passed the Senate 18 Bill, which protected protests on campus as long as conduct remained lawful and did not prevent the university from functioning. So what made this protest so wrong? Can it be blamed on the students? Was Jay Hartzell wrong in calling for state troopers from both Houston and Austin to arrest his own students? Was this protest effective at all? In this essay, I’d like to examine the core functions of a protest, what makes them successful, and what causes them to fail. I’ll start with examinations into protests from the past, break down what makes a protest a positive or negative force to a movement, and analyze how police affect a protest. The goal of this essay is to see how we as citizens can best exercise our right to protest, and use the power of the masses to call for change. Let’s get into it. 

An Examination into Historically Significant Student Protests

Columbia - Vietnam - April, 1968

The Columbia encampment was started by Columbia’s Students for a Democratic Society, as well as other student groups, to protest the University’s research for the Vietnam War and the construction of a gym in Morningside Park. The students held the buildings under occupation for nearly a week, and after all negotiation attempts failed (the students rejected them when they failed to fulfill demands), the university sent in over 1,000 armed officers to break into the buildings. This caused a violent outbreak between the students and faculty and the police. The police arrested 700 students and faculty and injured more, which prompted the remaining students and faculty to strike for the remainder of the semester. The strike was even more effective, as the university cut ties with defense research and halted construction on a new gym (Zinn Education Project, 2024).

Greensboro Sit-Ins - Civil Rights - February,1960

The Greensboro Sit-Ins, started by the now infamous Greensboro Four, Ezell Blair Jr. David Richmonf, Franklin McCain, and Joseph McNeil, were protests started by North Carolina students to combat segregation in the South. The four students began, inspired by the murder of Emmitt Till five years prior, by sitting at a “whites-only” section of a diner, and refusing to move when denied service (Sullivan, 2010) . It was designed to intentionally spur outrage from dining participants, yet calculated enough to where the men could not be removed by law enforcement. Additionally, it sparked massive media coverage, prompting organizations such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to perform more sit-ins across the country. The protests remained disruptive to the public, but nonviolent in nature, and as media coverage spread like a wildfire, several dining facilities in the south became integrated 5 months later (Britannica, 2024). The protest has been hailed as one of the most effective student protests in American history, noth for the nature in which it was conducted, and the effective and rapid results it brought forth.

Kent State - Vietnam - May, 1970

The Kent State protests, what would later become the Kent State Massacre, began in response to Richard Nixon authorizing the US invasion of Cambodia a month prior. The protests began on May 1st, where students organized on the campus Commons, giving speeches and non-violent demonstrations to express anger that Nixon invaded without getting Congress to declare war (Lewis, 2019). After the assembly, another rally was organized on the following Monday. 

That evening, violence broke out between student protestors and police in downtown Kent, with an estimated 500 civilians participating in riots that lasted until 3 am. The destruction saw windows of cars and buildings smashed, and culminated in the injury of 5 officers, the arrest of 14 students, and tear gas used to disperse the crowd. This, coupled with the arson of the Kent State ROTC building (the perpetrator is unknown, but assumed to be the protestors), prompted the Mayor to call in roughly 1,000 troops to the University by Sunday, the 3rd.

On the Morning of the 4th, University officials attempted to inform students that a rally would be prohibited given the events that unfolded the previous week, but shockingly, they were unsuccessful. Students, either unaware or undeterred by the University warnings, began to gather By noon, the commons held a crowd of 3,000 people, about 500 of which were estimated to be active participants in the demonstration. While the protest continued to speak against the war, many students now also objected to the militant presence on campus. The Guard ordered the crowd to disperse, and when the request was not heeded, students were assaulted with tear gas canisters before the guards marched on the crowd. The crowd was forced up a hill near the football field, before 28 out of the 70 guards turned and fired on the students, shooting off 61-67 shots in 13 seconds. 4 students were killed and 9 were injured. Sandra Scheur was shot in the neck walking to class, she had not been involved in the demonstration. William Schroeder was shot in the back while trying to run away. All across the green, one word was yelled by students and faculty alike: “Why?”

The Kent State Massacre would go down in infamy for another reason. Rather than being noted as a successful protest, it stands as a chilling reminder of the dangers protestors face against the status quo. While the actions of the protestors, especially on the night of May 2nd, were certainly excessive, the response by the National Guard represented a flagrant abuse of power, which only became more apparent in the trials following the massacre. 

The core issue was this: either the Guards were in immediate danger, and fired in self defense, or the Guards were not in immediate danger, and therefore the killings cannot be justified. Naturally, the Guardsman claimed they were in fear for their lives. They feared for their lives, after tear gassing students, driving them across campus, and being a force of 1,000 strong, all armed with M-1 Semi-Automatic rifles. While yes, some students were armed with rocks, this killing of students by the National Guard is nothing short of blatant exploitation of power. The Scranton Commission of 1970 (penned by then President Nixon) puts it best: “The indiscriminate firing of rifles into a crowd of students and the deaths that followed were unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable.”

What makes a protest beneficial to a cause?

Disruption

Now depending on how often you watch the news, where you get your news from, and your general view of protests, this point may either seem obvious, or counterintuitive. After all, how would a protest that intentionally disrupts the status quo be able to garner popular support? I assert that disruption is one of the most essential aspects for any successful protest. However, allow me to clarify that intentional disruption does not permit any and all action from participants (I’ll address more specific guidelines later in this essay). With that caveat in place, why would social disruption be necessary for a protest to take hold? Why would a protest intentionally anger the media and create broad political enemies? The answer is simple: It gets people talking. Disruptive protests strive to make the public uncomfortable (Harris, 2019), forcing them to consider the cause at hand. If people’s daily lives are stopped, disrupted, or inconvenienced due to the actions of a protest, they’re forced to consider an issue they would’ve otherwise ignored. It is through this disruption (along with further media coverage) that allows the cause of the protest to become more widespread, inevitably bringing more support.

But, you must be wondering, how could this possibly work. Wouldn’t disruptive protests only enrage those not involved, thus harming the protests? Why can’t we simply open up a dialogue to discuss these issues? Is disruption necessary if discussion is an option? Well, to analyze the effectiveness of disruptive protests, let’s look at the numbers. 

As a note, while this essay intends to analyze student protests, I’ll be citing data relating to citizen/worker protests in order to illustrate the effectiveness of disruption. Unsurprisingly, students have different motivations and leverage in protest efforts, especially those that occur at universities, therefore the tactics used by other protests cannot be applied directly. This does not affect students using their civil rights in larger protests, where the cause is not related to the university directly.

From an academic angle first, a survey (Ozden, 2023 & Gordon, 2024) of over 120 experts in sociology, political science, and other related fields found a majority of 69% thought disruptive tactics, for issues with high awareness and support, were effective/beneficial for causes. 30% found that disruptive tactics, for issues with high awareness but low support, were effective, going to show that the respective social and political climate plays a role in the success of organized collective action.

A study (Garland, 2020) of 1,400 protests across 69 countries found that protest success hinges on protest frequency and form (i.e. a high amount of organized, nonviolent protests over time). The same survey also found this same data reflected in protests in the UK by the Anti-Fracking movement. In September 2018, four men used convoy trucks to block a convoy of drilling equipment. This prompted many protests to block entrances to fracking sites and routes for equipment, demanding an end to fracking across the UK. In 2019, following public demand and recent environmental review, England instituted an immediate halt of fracking, a major U-Turn for the conservative party in office. 

The data shows that disruption is often a necessary step before discussion, with successful protests having greater legal success after attracting widespread coverage. However, disruptive protests do have their limitations, which will be covered in my next few points.

Insistence on Nonviolence

On March 7th, 1965, 600 unarmed protestors were attacked on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. The march was progressing towards the capital city of Montgomery, protesting racial segregation surrounding voting rights, when protestors were assaulted with tear gas, billy clubs, and firehoses. Despite the violent opposition, nobody involved in the protest fought back, seeming more content to be beaten in the streets than to defend themselves. MLK Jr. followed a formula set by Mahatma Gandhi, insisting on nonviolence in every movement, without exception. The movement was a success, with historians creditting the marches as a pivotal push for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and made history as one of the most successful protests in the United States (Klein, 2015).

Nonviolence is by far the most effective tool for collective action. It’s so effective that protests are frequently judged as moral or immoral (or justified/unjustified) based purely on the presence of violent behavior, such as the Minnesota riots following George Floyd’s death. By limiting violent action at a protest, the public reception of protests is focussed on the cause of the protest, rather than the actions taken by individual members. When violence enters a protest, public attention and opinion is directed on the destructive aftermath of the protest, rather than the reason for the movement itself. During 2020, coverage over the BLM protests focussed almost exclusively on the riots and damage caused to property, with the actual cause for the protest either forgotten or ignored by the populace (Stockman, 2020). With violent protests, might makes right, with force commanding success of a movement. With nonviolent protests, the cause of the movement, and the demand for justice, determines the success. Without violence, the public has nothing left to consider but the message.

Now this certainly seems to make sense of paper, but let’s reinforce our point with some data. Nonviolent resistance is proven as substantially more effective than violent campaigns, with one study (Woods, 2019) finding that 53% of nonviolent campaigns were successful, compared to only 26% of violent campaigns. While this success rate seems to doom most protests to terrible odds, the study is meant to demonstrate the advantage of nonviolent protests, and does not take into account the varying political climates that heavily determine the success of a protest. However, regardless of environment, nonviolent protests see far greater success in accomplishing their goals. 

Clear and Direct Goal for the Protest

The right to protest is designed for the public to demand policy changes from the government. With this in mind, success of a protest hinges on how clearly the goal is communicated. If a protest contains several varying ideas to accomplish, it lacks the unity that collective action depends on (Haan, 2020). Protests rely on a single body of people unified towards one cause, so when this cause is abandoned or fragmented, the success of the protest naturally declines.

To illustrate this, let’s use examples from the past. The civil rights marches from Selma to Montgomery had the singular purpose of eliminating racial discrimination regarding voting rights. Everyone involved had the same goal, and thus was able to accomplish this change within the year. More recently, Occupy Wall Street united protestors with the goal of reducing income inequality and promoting fair wages, and in turn drove forth renewed discussion for the movement that’s still in effect over a decade later. 

With Occupy Wall Street in mind, many assume that the protest ultimately failed. After all, income inequality is still prevalent in America, despite progress inspired by the movement taking effect. So despite the clear message, what can we learn from this movement? The goal of a protest has to be unified, but it must also be realistic to demand. An abolishment of income inequality is not accomplished by simply signing a new law; it would require a restructuring of society, and redistribution of money and property. Occupy Wall Street got the ball rolling for social change (Anderson, 2021), but was never able to bring about the change immediately. The Selma marches and the Occupy Wall Street movement both delivered clear messages and goals, and maintained fantastic unity, but the difference lay in their demands. Selma called for a policy change, whereas Occupy called for societal restructuring. Much easier said than done.

In short, while collective action does not demand that every member hold identical views on every issue, the success of direct action is bolstered through ideological unity. If people within the movement cannot even agree amongst themselves, then how do they expect the opposing side to cede to their demands. With a clear and direct goal for the protest in place, members of the movement have a singular banner to fall under, and a clear demand to place in front of the opposition

Favorable Political Climate / Preexisting Public Support

I’ve mentioned the political climate having an effect on the outcome of a protest, regardless of efforts from protestors. This is where that point unfortunately comes into play. A protest can be held for any movement, but if that movement lacks any amount of elite or political support, then people in power have no need to make changes (Shuman, 2023). However, if a protest centers around a popular issue, and is therefore able to mobilize large numbers and show high demand, then demands are far more likely to be met.

Ultimately, politicians will listen to those who pay them. A 2007 study (Giugni, 2007) analyzed the effect of elite allies in protest movements, and found that protest success depends both on public opinion and the presence of political allies. If legislators are ultimately the people who make political changes, and they’ve seen no need to implement demanded changes from protests, then the changes will not occur. Conversely, by relying on a positive public opinion and support from more elite members of society, protests have the power to force the hand of the legislators. Another study done in 2020 (Benardi, 2020) reinforces this, finding that legislator action occurs only with the presence of a strong protestor signal, and the movement being in line with existing public priorities. Simply put, if the society doesn’t support the movement, and legislators have no incentive to implement changes, then the movement is likely to die.

Large Numbers

In addition to existing public and political support, legislators are swayed by numbers. This point is similar to existing public support, but depends more on the protest itself rather than the cultural environment. If a protest cannot bring forth large amounts of support, then it reflects that the issue is not important to the eyes of policy makers. Large numbers for the protest, in addition to demonstrating collective strength against opposition, show that the movement is strongly demanded and popular. A 2017 study (Wouters and Walgrave, 2017)  found that elected officials are far more likely to sympathize with a protest if the numbers are large, because it shows that a majority of their voters have the same demand. This point is rather simple. The larger the protest, the more successful it tends to be. There is strength in numbers. The masses demand results. 

What makes a protest detrimental to a cause?

Lack of a Common Goal / Abandonment of Core Issue

Now, we’ve already analyzed what makes a protest effective in accomplishing its stated purpose, so what makes a protest detrimental to the cause it advocates? Luckily for us, the inverse of success is failure, so detrimental protest practices can be traced to an abandonment of the core principles laid out in the previous section. If a protest is not socially disruptive, is violent in nature, lacks a unified goal or public support, and is unable to mobilize numbers, the movement is bound to fail. For this section, we’ll analyze why failing to adhere to the previous section can spell doom for the movement, beginning first with the lack of a clear goal.

As spelled out beforehand, a mass of people all demanding the same thing is vital to the success of a protest. This can be spoiled in two key ways: lack of a common goal, or abandonment of the original goal. Lack of a common goal is simple enough. While numbers hold an advantage in protests, they come with the natural downside of ideological diversity. When enough people come together, they’re bound to disagree eventually. While these disagreements are inevitable, they cannot be allowed to overshadow the main goal of the protest. If half the mob wants police reform, while the other half wants police abolishment, then policy makers won’t cede to the demands of either. It is only when the entire crowd is unified that change can be effectively demanded.

The second is more tricky. While a protest can form and maintain a unified view without splitting into factions, it can still lose credibility if the position shifts over time. Regardless of unity, if the demands of the protest are not constant, then they fail to sway policy makers. After all, if the position of the masses will change given time, then why make any change? To illustrate this, let’s analyze the Kent State protests. While the protest began with protesting Richard Nixon and the US involvement in Vietnam, the presence of the National Guard on campus shifted the narrative. All of a sudden, students protested government restriction on free speech through military force. While they remained unified in this goal, the original complaints of the protest were abandoned, leading to ineffective calls for action, and the tragedy of the Kent State Massacre.

Knowing your enemy/Demonization of counter protestors.

In a similar vein to abandoning the core issue of the protest, protests tend to fail when they don’t know who to attack. When movements demand policy change, their enemies are the creators and implementers of those policies. Protests lose track when their actions and rhetoric attacks civilians who support those policies, rather than those who have actual political influence (Pandit, 2024). This point walks hand in hand with maintaining a central message. When a protest loses sight of who the enemy truly is, then the enemy wins. Policy makers can bank on citizens fighting each other, because as long as civilian violence persists, then no one demands change from those who make the laws. So, when hosting a protest, direct your message to those who have the power to enact change. Collective action is most effective when all citizens work together. Don’t alienate dissenters from the movement. Rather, direct them towards the source of their aggression. Internal conflict only causes movements to implode. By maintaining consistency and keeping the demands centered at legislators, protests have a better shot at forcing the hand of those in power. As my favorite Rage Against the Machine song goes: “Know Your Enemy.”

Destruction of Property

While I could address violence in general, and while violent protests certainly have their own slew of problems, I’d like to focus this section on a particular form of violent/disorderly conduct that seems to damage the reputation of many movements in the US: Destruction of property. The most notable example in recent memory were the BLM riots that occurred in 2020. Notice how I referred to them as riots, rather than protests. It’s how most people remember them, after all. Regardless of the cause behind the protests, the public narrative demonized the movement due to over $500 Million caused in damages to Minneapolis (Smith, 2024), including 1,500 businesses and a police station. This destruction completely overshadowed the calls for police abolishment and reform, and allowed the media to classify everyone involved in the movement as opportunistic looters, rather than citizens calling for change.

Ultimately, the destruction of property during a protest, especially property that is completely unrelated to the cause at hand, is inexcusable. As with my previous point about “knowing your enemy,” destruction of property only causes the citizens within a community to break into factions and demonize each other, rather than uniting to bring forth change. Legislative change comes through collective unity and demanding discussion, not through force and destruction. And while I understand that destruction of property was not the goal of everyone involved in the protest, the damages still outweigh the movement in this case. If destruction can be minimized in a protest, it should be a top priority, in order to preserve the message above all else. 

How Does Police Presence Affect a Protest?

Who should be blamed for the violence?

Now I’ve taken plenty of time to critique protesters and their behavior at movements. Protests are frequently designed to be nonviolent, and to mobilize collective action to call for change. It’s shocking when they turn violent, even with the presence of counter protestors and bad actors (usually instigators and looters). While protest leaders are ultimately responsible for maintaining order in the movements they organize, should they truly be blamed for the violence their movements cause? Are citizens always at fault when protests get out of hand? While it may seem that citizens are escalating events, and police do everything in their power to maintain order, this is not quite the case. In fact, it’s usually the opposite.

Now before I criticize all police action at protests, let’s analyze why police are called to protests in the first place. Then, we’ll examine their purpose compared to their results, and determine how effective and safe they truly are. The right to peaceful assembly is protected under the First Amendment, and law enforcement officers are present to protect the right to protest (ACLU, 2024). Police action should generally focus on crowd management and facilitation, as opposed to crowd control, as control is a slippery slope to infringing on the public’s rights. With this stated purpose in mind, let’s analyze how police officers behave at protests and what results they bring about.

De-escalation vs Escalation

Police are expected to deescalate protests when present, but there is a fundamental dissonance between how the protest should be deescalated, and how police tend to approach crowd control. As law enforcement officers, police tend to respond to problems with force first, especially when their goal is to reduce violence. Scott Thomson, a former police chief in Camden, NJ sums up this ideological dissonance best: “There’s this failed mindset of ‘if we show force, immediately we will deter criminal activity or unruly activity’ and show me where that has worked … But what we need to know as professionals is that there are times, if we go one step higher, we are forcing them to go one step higher.” (Koerth, 2020)

When police enter a situation and respond with force, be that arriving in riot gear, making mass arrests, and using weapons and tear gas, the protest will inevitably escalate and become more violent. According to a study (Maguire, 2015) analyzing 50 years of protests and police confrontations, escalating force leads to more violence, not less. As Thomson pointed out, police force creates negative feedback loops, where protesters and police continue to escalate violence against each other in an attempt to maintain the upper hand. The police are fighting an increasingly rowdy protest, thinking it best to control the crowd by using force. Conversely, the protestors are faced with their right to protest being stripped from them, and so they escalate force out of self preservation.

Between 1967-1970, the same time as the aforementioned study, 3 federal commissions were formed to research violence at protests. All three defended the studies findings, that violent police behavior at protests causes the very violence they hope to prevent (McPhail, 1998). Additionally, the Kerner Commission, designed to investigate urban riots, found that police action was pivotal in starting at least half of the riots studied. Ultimately, as Thomson described, police officers have the mentality that force will solve their problems, when the evidence clearly points in the opposite direction. Regardless of 5 decades of data, officers are trained to assert their dominance in situations as a means of control, even when that very mindset could get themselves and others killed. In doing this, police officers miss the very reason they’re at protests in the first place: to protect and serve.

Building Community

So, what’s the alternative? Proper crowd management isn’t as simple as arriving with an approachable demeanor. That approach doesn’t quite overshadow the riot gear. Police can’t expect agreeable crowds when they arrive halfway through the protests dressed like enemies. Instead of looking for allies when they need them, police should be getting ahead of the issue. Arrive early to protests (not armed to the teeth), meet with protest organizers to plan mobilization accordingly, and help facilitate everyone’s right to protest (Maguire, 2015).

Now, this strategy only works if the protest was organized, rather than occurring spontaneously. While this would make facilitation far less successful, police can still de-escalate the situation through transparent communication. Based on research from sociologist Anne Nassauer (Nassauer, 2019) , the best approach to deal with crowds is to use direct, calm language to communicate both police actions and demands. Additionally, officers can be sent out to talk to demonstrators, listen to their concerns, and empathize above all else. While no strategy is perfect (as no protest is the same), leading with a cooperative approach would help the police to do their jobs more effectively and prevent citizen’s rights from being taken.

How the University Encampments Performed

What the encampments did right

Now that I’ve broken down what makes a successful protest, let’s break down what the UT encampments did right. Off the bat, many would say the protest was a failure, as it did not achieve its stated goal of divestment. While accomplishment of stated goals is certainly one metric to measure protest success, it’s definitely not the most realistic. After all, change doesn’t happen overnight, and not all protests demand such direct goals in the first place. I’d assert that while the protest failed to get UT to divest, it was still very effective for the movement in Austin. Media coverage and social media ensured that everyone saw the protest for what it was: a suppression of the right to peacefully protest by the government of Texas. While the encampment itself was unable to happen, protests following the one at UT had far greater turnouts, and many people previously ambivalent to the issue have begun to mobilize. 

Additionally, the UT Austin encampment stood by the rules for good protest I already outlined. The protest was sufficiently disruptive (plenty of non-participating onlookers were present, I assure you.), the protestors remained non-violent, the message to Divest was always the central theme of the protest, a large turnout was maintained, and the protest remained quite unified. All in all, the protest had the making to be successful. The reason encampment didn’t happen in Austin is because the political climate forbids it.

What the encampments did wrong

As I’ve already broken down, the political climate is essential to determining the success of a movement. Texas, being a conservative state (despite the obvious outlying city of Austin) was naturally opposed to a movement propagated by a more left-leaning student body. Additionally, due to the US’s long standing relationship with the nation of Israel, those opposed to the movement were quick to label protestors as “terrorist sympathizers” and “antisemitic” in order to dismiss the movement’s legitimacy. Ultimately, despite the socially progressive attitude of the student body, the encampments seen at schools like Brown and Columbia could never have happened in Texas, simply because there isn’t enough populus support for the issue.

Conclusion

On April 25th, one day after 57 students were arrested on the South Mall, I walked across campus again. Police and news reporters were still covering the campus, and, to my surprise, there was another protest in front of UT Tower. This was hosted by both students and faculty, born out of outrage at the events just one day before. Students and Faculty were both invited to speak, continuing to call for Divestment from war profiteering. The protest was contained to the front of UT Tower, and due to minimal interference from law enforcement, it remained peaceful and non-disruptive. Despite the harsh resistance of the day before, hope remained for the movement to continue, and the south mall was occupied for a few days following this second protest. The occupation remained peaceful, and remained on the lawn until police arrived at the university to arrest another 80 students. All charges against students were dropped days later, as they were after the initial encampment, proving that students were well within their rights to protest. 

In this essay, I’ve broken down what behaviors either help or hinder a protest, analyzed the effect of police presence, and used said reflections to judge the encampments that happened in my city. Protesting is never meant to be easy, especially when the issue is politically unpopular, or against the current status quo. Progress can feel impossible in today’s society, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. The biggest strength a protest can have is garnering coverage from the media and keeping the fight going. Change in our system may take time, but it isn’t impossible. We have the movements of the past to help us remember that. While the current political climate seems hostile to issues at hand, that is nothing more than a sign to keep fighting for your beliefs. Change isn’t accomplished overnight. It takes hundreds of people, organized demands, and a willingness to fight for what’s right. Ultimately, my goal for this essay is to help all future protests. We all have a right to do it, so let’s do it effectively. Change doesn’t happen immediately, and it doesn’t happen alone.