protest

(noun)

A protest is an expression of objection, by words or by actions, to particular events, policies, or situations. Protests can take many different forms, from individual statements to mass demonstrations. Protesters may organize a protest as a way of publicly making their opinions heard in an attempt to influence public opinion or government policy.

Related Terms

Examples of protest in the following topics:

  • Politics and the Great Recession of 2008

    • Hundreds of thousands protested in France against President Sarkozy's economic policies.
    • Communists in Moscow also rallied to protest the Russian government's economic plans.
    • Protests have also occurred in China as demands from the west for exports have been dramatically reduced and unemployment increased.
    • Beyond these initial protests, the protest movement has grown and continued in 2011.
    • In late 2011, the Occupy Wall Street protest took place in the United States, spawning several offshoots that came to be known as the Occupy movement.

  • Litigating for Equality After World War II

    • Many white people in southern states protested integration, and legislators thought up creative ways to get around the ruling.
    • A 1959 rally in Little Rock AK protests the integration of the high school.

  • Forming Political Values

    • For example, Protestants tend to be more conservative (in countries where Protestants are not great majority).
    • Student activists in the 1960s protested against US involvement in the Vietnam War.

  • Other Forms of Political Participation

    • Political protest activity represents another sphere of political participation.
    • Protests involve unconventional, and sometimes unlawful, political actions that are undertaken to gain rewards from the political and economic system.
    • Protest behavior can take many forms.
    • Other forms of protest behavior include marking public spaces with graffiti, demonstrating, and boycotting.
    • Extreme forms of protest behavior include acts that cause harm, like bombing a building or rioting.

  • Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement

    • Key events in the Civil Rights Movement included: the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-1956), which began when Rosa Parks, a NAACP secretary, was arrested when she refused to cede her public bus seat to a white passenger; the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School (1957); the Selma to Montgomery marches, also known as Bloody Sunday and the two marches that followed, were marches and protests held in 1965 that marked the political and emotional peak of the American civil rights movement which sought to secure voting rights for African-Americans.
    • The student sit-ins protesting segregated lunch counters (1960); the Freedom Rides (1961) in which activists attempted to integrate bus terminals, restrooms, and water fountains; voter registration drives; and the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (1963), in which civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

  • Referenda on Affirmative Action

    • Hundreds of students protested Proposition 209 at the University of California - Berkeley.

  • Freedom of Speech

    • The flag of the United States is sometimes symbolically burned, often in protest of the policies of the American government, both within the country and abroad.
    • This individual is protesting for the right to speak freely.

  • Taxation Without Representation

    • The colonists released much propaganda during this time in protest of what they said was unconstitutional policies.

  • Presidential Candidates

    • Unofficially, presidents tend to be educated at elite institutions, and only one U.S. president has practiced a religion other than that of the mainstream protestant faith (John F.
    • Also, 2012 Republican candidate Mitt Romney is Mormon, which is considered by many to be a fringe protestant denomination.

  • Cohesiveness

    • This is a photograph of a group of protesters outside the AIPAC conference at the Washington, D.C.