Americans are protesting the Trump administration. Do they work?

Consider This from NPR

NPR

Society & Culture, News, Daily News, News Commentary

4.1 • 5.3K Ratings

🗓️ 24 April 2025

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When you think of a successful protest movement, most Americans probably think of the American Civil Rights movement, and the March on Washington in 1963.

Martin Luther King, Jr. standing behind a podium on the steps of the Lincoln memorial delivered his most famous speech and a line that would come to define the goals of the Civil Rights Movement.

President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act just nine months after the March. A year after that Johnson signed the National Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The quest for equality continues. In the decades since that bright summer day in August 1963, many other Americans have tried to use the model of protest to achieve their political goals.

But do protests work?

For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	When you think of a successful protest movement, most Americans probably think of the American
0:04.5	Civil Rights Movement and the March on Washington in 1963.
0:09.0	It was such a joyous day. There was such a broad array of support from whites, Jews, Christians,
0:18.2	labor. For those of us who were born in segregation, as I was, to come and see
0:24.0	this array of powerful white Americans coming in on our side was thrilling, uplifting,
0:32.1	and we went away, many of us, I among them, euphoric.
0:36.8	That's activist Roger Wilkins, recalling the historic day.
0:40.6	In 2008, Wilkins and Martin Luther King Jr. biographer Taylor Branch spoke to NPR for the 45th
0:47.0	anniversary of that March and Dr. King's famous speech. The day was a powerful and star-studded
0:53.1	event, attracting the likes of singer Harry Belafonte,
0:56.5	union leader A. Philip Randolph, and of course Martin Luther King Jr. But at the time,
1:02.2	Branch says, Washington was bracing itself for immense violence as protesters filled the city.
1:08.1	They expected riot and mayhem to a degree that is almost impossible
1:12.9	to apprehend today, unless you go back and read the records. Liquor sales were canceled in the
1:18.9	District of Columbia for the first time since the end of prohibition in 1933. Plasma was stockpiled.
1:25.8	Electric surgery was canceled. But of course, that didn't happen, and the March on Washington is remembered as the model of peaceful and effective protest, despite the passion that it brought the hundreds of thousands to Washington that day.
1:39.1	You can hear that passion in the voice of John Lewis, then the chairman of the student nonviolent coordinating
1:44.3	committee.
1:45.1	Those who have said be patient and wait, we must say that we cannot be patient.
1:50.8	We do not want our freedom gradually, but we want to be free now.
1:56.4	And of course, at five o'clock that day.
1:58.9	I have the pleasure to present to you, Dr. Martin Luther King, J.R.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.