Freedom Doing: Abolitionist Movement Narratives in the U.S. 1820-2023

Jadelynn Zhang, Emory University

This study asks how the origins of abolitionist movements in the U.S. context paved the way for the prison-industrial complex abolition movement. What does the historical genealogy of abolitionist discourse tell us about its role in advancing movements? How are counternarratives employed across time in abolitionist movements? While sociologists have studied narratives in a multitude of movements throughout history (Polletta 2006), very few have studied movement narratives over the course of a long-term struggle, divorcing them from larger temporal and sociohistorical contexts that shape a movement tradition. This makes it difficult to trace movement histories and the dominant consolidations of power against which they are protesting. Since there is limited focus on how abolitionist movements have shaped and been shaped by counternarratives across time, there is a need for further sociological inquiry into this movement genealogy. This study applied comparative critical discourse analysis (CDA) to a sample of primary source abolitionist publications issues (n=20) across three time periods between 1820-2023, including The Emancipator, The North Star, The Student Voice, Black Panther, Great Speckled Bird, The Abolitionist, and zines from the Stop Cop City movement. I developed a codebook for textual analysis by integrating the Critical Race Theory/Intersectionality lens (Watkins Liu 2008) into a CDA framework. Discursive and social practices analysis were integrated both during and after textual analysis. This study’s results situated abolitionist movement narratives in a longue durée of contingent historical events that shaped a longstanding movement tradition. I found that abolitionist publications used a variety of strategies, like making connections and generating discussions within movements, to push the movement, and society as a whole, closer to liberation. Abolitionist publications also used rhetorical strategies to leverage dominant perspectives and expose their contradictions. The analyzed publications carried on literary traditions and forms that have endured throughout the Black Freedom Struggle.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 215. Abolitionism, Coalition Formation, and Mobilization