"Nationalizing a Movement": Assessing the Reach of Moral Mondays

Markstein 101

After the ongoing efforts of North Carolina’s Moral Mondays Movement led to the defeat of former Governor Pat McCrory in 2013, some began to view the movement as a potential model for resistance against the Trump administration (Purdy 2017). The movement’s leading figure Reverend William Barber brings diverse groups of people together in solidarity to protest different issues through acts of civil disobedience. He seeks to promote a moral agenda which will resist poverty, war, and racism. While this movement has achieved some success and visibility, it is difficult to predict how it will function on a national level. North Carolina has a unique political history that influences its circumstances for potential change (Schulson 2017). Despite the variation among them, other states have been inspired to take their own action. This project aims to examine the expansion of Moral Mondays’ coalition politics across the country by using evidence of movement activity on social media as a measure to determine the reach of the movement, particularly in regards to the West Coast. How many states outside of North Carolina show evidence of Moral Mondays activity? When did movement activity begin and how long did it last? How many events took place in each state and where? This information will help researchers understand variation in the reach, sustainability, and strength of Moral Mondays across the country. Through this investigation, my research intends to explore the likelihood of a social movement’s national expansion and its viability in across regions.