Civil rights agitation produced diverse outcomes across southern localities and against different targets. Sit-in protests in Greensboro ended segregated seating at the downtown lunch counters after several months of struggle. Activists won public school desegregation in Atlanta with relative ease compared to the protracted struggle in New Orleans against significant white countermobilization, although in both localities, despite the different paths taken, only token changes in the public schools were achieved. Voter registration drives in Atlanta successfully expanded black voter registration, whereas similar activities in Greenwood met with stunning defeat. In sum, the case studies in the preceding chapter elucidate how the exposure of targets to specific combinations of disruption and concession costs shaped their responses to movement mobilization. They document the pattern of sectoral variation in the exposure of economic actors to movement disruption costs and explicate the constellations of third parties that intervened to shape movement-target interactions.

While case studies depict specific targets weighing their cost exposure and responding accordingly, they are less useful for assessing the robustness of this relationship. Further, although social movements are often discussed as if they were unitary entities, they encompass disparate bundles of demands and tactics. I suggest that each bundle necessarily imposes distinctive combinations of disruption and concession costs on targets and third parties that, in turn, shape their behavior. In the case of civil rights, the movement sought in particular to desegregate southern society and win political rights denied under Jim Crow.