When does a movement become a Movement?
It is a vexing question. Invoking the term is meant to denote seriousness, to suggest that the activism you are engaged in will not disappear with the passing of the news cycle or be headed off by the most recent tidbit of celebrity gossip. A movement digs deep, plants roots, and grows until its objectives are achieved. There are today no agreed-upon benchmarks to be reached in order to call something a movement: No law must be passed, no number of people assembled in the public square. Anyone with a cause can claim the term in order to benefit from the gravity it connotes. With such a low barrier to entry, it becomes harder for even the most benevolent social critics to distinguish “thoughtful networks of dissent built over time,” as the historian Blair L.M. Kelley defines a movement, from those that are branded as such without any effort to be one.
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