Abstract
Abstract conversations regarding systemic racism and inequity at the national level sometimes become tangible local struggles over specific institutions, policies, and individuals’ reputations. The nuances of specific local contexts, this research argues, reflects and reshapes the dynamics in the wider national polity. In that same vein, examining processes of local policy change provides greater insight into the challenges and mechanisms involved in national reforms. This research project seeks to answer three interrelated questions regarding suburban protest in the summer of 2020: what varying factors shaped protest forms in suburban communities in particular; what changes did suburban protests cause in local institutions and policy, and in the development of indigenous social movement organizing; and, what implications, if any, does the suburban protest phenomenon have for the national movement for racial justice, and for wider sociopolitical shifts in American politics? With nearly 10 percent of American adults who attended a protest in solidarity with George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement self-identifying as political independents, the suburban protest phenomenon is indicative of a potential shift in the wider national sociopolitical climate, which, if sustained, could affect future elections.