Civil rights protests and election outcomes: Exploring the effects of the poor people’s campaign

D. Mark Anderson, Kerwin Kofi Charles, Krzysztof Karbownik, Daniel I. Rees and Camila Steffens

Explorations in Economic History, 2025, vol. 97, issue C

Abstract: The Poor People’s Campaign (PPC) of 1968 was focused on highlighting, and ultimately reducing, poverty in the United States. As part of the campaign, protestors from across the country were transported to Washington, D.C. in 6 separate bus caravans, each of which made stops en route to rest, recruit, and hold non-violent protests. Using data from 1960–1970, we estimate the effects of these protests on congressional election outcomes. In the South, we find that PPC protests led to reductions in Democratic vote share and turnout, while in the West they may have benefited Democratic candidates at the expense of their Republican rivals.

Keywords: Civil rights protests; Poor people's campaign; Congressional election outcomes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 I30 J15 N32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014498325000336
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:exehis:v:97:y:2025:i:c:s0014498325000336

DOI: 10.1016/j.eeh.2025.101686

Access Statistics for this article

Explorations in Economic History is currently edited by R.H. Steckel

More articles in Explorations in Economic History from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().