How Minimum Wage Became a Civil Rights Issue

• In Event: New Perspectives on Race and American Political Development

Abstract

This paper explores how and why civil rights policy advocates who were otherwise cautious about broadening their agenda took pains to frame minimum wage as a matter of civil rights – and, in turn, as a legislative priority for the coalition of civil rights, labor, religious, and other organizations that had recently lobbied in coordination for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. Drawing on extensive archival research, the paper traces the redefinition of minimum wage as a civil rights issue and shows how it was envisioned as a means for both lobbying coalition maintenance and intra-civil rights movement conflict management. In doing so, it contributes to APD research on the development of civil rights policy, which has by and large overlooked the role of lobbying-oriented groups as linkage agencies between protest-oriented activists and Beltway policymakers. It also sheds light on the dynamics of lobbying coalition management, which is often black-boxed in research on interest group behavior. Finally, it contributes to burgeoning research on moderate social movement organizations’ strategic efforts to capitalize on emergent radical flank challenges.

Author

• Shamira M. Gelbman, Wabash College