External Forces That Influence A Community's Receptivity To Change

Outside forces that alter economic conditions and social and political structure influence a community’s receptivity to external ideas and change. This receptivity in turn may welcome external agents that can direct the transformation of that community. This essay compares how outside forces such as the Great Depression created environments that were conducive to change and how that change came about. It will also compare external agents like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) to see how they used altered conditions to carry out an agenda and to examine how successful they were in transforming their target community. (I use community loosely to refer to a group of individuals
Other agendas are broader such as advancing democratic freedoms through the increased voter registration of African-Americans or creating a dynamic union through the transformation of ethnically divided laborers into a unified working class. Transformation can also take place on a national level through the interaction between community and national leaders. Receptivity to change can be based on the desire for change as witnessed by I’ve Got the Light of Freedom or it can take the form of adaptation to changed circumstances as in Making the New Deal. Receptivity to change can also be based on a reaction to perceptions of change overwhelming traditional social and moral structures as in Suburban Warriors. Reactionary change can also occur when receptivity is lacking as in The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction and take the form of a backlash against the external and internal instigators of
SNCC, through activists such as Bob Moses and Medgar Evans, used existing grass roots organizations to make connections with opinion leaders within the community. Through interaction between the organization and these individuals and institutions, SNCC organized a number of activities aimed at creating a collective consciousness among the black community but also to increase voter registration. One way the organization was able to stimulate voter registration was to engage in a food drive when the White Citizens Council withheld food consignments from the black community. By serving to blunt the effect of white reprisal, SNCC created trust among community