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14 Introduction
intra-organizational conflict, generally spelled out in its constitution or by-laws (Zald and Berger 1978). I questioned whether social movements within organizations worked within or outside of these normal channels, and my research reveals that IOSMs do use prescribed tactics for seeking change within organizations. However, their relationship to legitimate channels and the existing structures of the organization is important to note. For instance, while the act of interrupting a committee meeting with a set of demands is disruptive and represents an illegitimate way to express grievances in organizations, it most certainly relies on and exists in relationship to those tactics that are legitimate. In other words, meeting interruptions, conference disruptions, and unsanctioned mailings represent the hijacking of proper channels rather than their circumvention. To be sure, black social workers did not make a habit of picketing the offices of their professional associations. Rather, they took full advantage of their position as “outsiders within” and sought to redirect conversations, create spectacles, and change minds within the organizational structure in which they were embedded (Hill-Collins 1986). Therefore, while scholars generally treat social movement tactics as deriving from an overarching strategy (i.e., sit-ins as a tactic of the nonviolent civil rights movement), it is important to consider how activists interpret the possibility of particular tactics based on an interaction between strategy and organizational context. It is also important to account for how professional and organizational norms shaped the “repertoires of contention” (Tilly 1978) that developed during this period of organizing within the professions. Civil Institutionalization
Within organizations like professional associations there is generally a lack of the kind of leadership that characterized the civil rights or Black Power movements. As a result, people who are invested in the goals of the broader movement create IOSMs. Based on my examination of the ways in which Black Power politics were brought into the social work profession, I propose a model for understanding movement institutionalization that places the actors responsible for demanding such change at the center. I suggest that these movements will necessarily perform three critical tasks in ushering in movement implementation. First, they are responsible for framing interests in a way that is relevant to the institution; that is, they do the work