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Americans are protesting the Trump administration. Do they work?

A view from the Lincoln Memorial toward the Washington Monument at the end of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where Martin Luther King Jr gave his "I Have a Dream" speech in August 1963.
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A view from the Lincoln Memorial toward the Washington Monument at the end of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where Martin Luther King Jr gave his "I Have a Dream" speech in August 1963.

When you think of a successful protest movement, most Americans probably think of the American Civil Rights movement, and the March on Washington in 1963.

Martin Luther King, Jr. standing behind a podium on the steps of the Lincoln memorial delivered his most famous speech and a line that would come to define the goals of the Civil Rights Movement.

President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act just nine months after the March. A year after that Johnson signed the National Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The quest for equality continues. In the decades since that bright summer day in August 1963, many other Americans have tried to use the model of protest to achieve their political goals.

But do protests work?

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