History terms in Popular movements (from 1750 CE onwards)

South Africa's main African nationalist organisation, founded in January 1912 as the South African Native National Congress; banned from 1960 to 1990, it won the first democratic election in 1994.

The belief that Africans should govern themselves and lead their own liberation from colonial or white-minority rule.

The political organisation founded at Dhaka in December 1906 to represent the interests of Indian Muslims; from 1940 it demanded a separate state, Pakistan.

The Native American rights organisation founded in Minneapolis in 1968, which used protests and occupations to press for treaty rights and against discrimination.

The youth wing of the ANC founded in 1944 by activists including Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo, which pushed the ANC towards African nationalism and mass action.

The British society founded in 1823 to campaign for the abolition of slavery in the British colonies, after the slave trade had been abolished in 1807.

Afrikaans for "separateness": the system of racial classification and segregation enforced by law in South Africa from 1948 until the early 1990s.

An Egyptian activist group formed online in 2008 to support a planned strike at Mahalla al-Kubra; it helped to organise the protests of 25 January 2011.

The result when repression of a movement produces more sympathy and support for it instead of less, usually because the attack is seen as unjust and becomes widely known.

An Egyptian Arabic term for hired thugs, used for the men paid by supporters of the Mubarak regime to attack protesters, as in the Battle of the Camel on 2 February 2011.

An order of the South African government, issued without trial, that restricted where a person could live and travel, whom they could meet and what they could publish; banned people could not be quoted.

The South African law of 1953 that placed African schooling under state control with a curriculum designed to prepare Africans for manual and subordinate work.

A section of a constitution, or a separate law, that lists the rights of citizens and protects them against the government; South Africa's Bill of Rights forms chapter 2 of its 1996 Constitution.

The movement led by Steve Biko from the late 1960s, which argued that Black South Africans must free themselves from the sense of inferiority created by white rule and lead their own struggle.

South African government policies, made law in 2003, that encourage businesses to increase Black ownership, management and employment in order to reduce the economic inequality left by apartheid.

18 November 1910, when police and bystanders assaulted about 300 suffragettes marching to Parliament in London over six hours; 115 women and four men were arrested.

The slogan and movement, popular from 1966, that called on Black Americans to build their own political, economic and cultural power and to defend themselves, instead of relying on integration and white allies.

A refusal to buy, use or deal with something, such as goods, a service, a business or an institution, as a form of protest or pressure.

British rule over India from 1858 to 1947, through a viceroy responsible to the British government.

Transporting pupils by bus to schools outside their neighbourhoods to end racial segregation in schools; approved by the US Supreme Court in 1971 and limited by it in 1974.

The British law of 1913 that allowed hunger-striking suffragettes to be released from prison when they became ill and re-arrested once they had recovered.

The civil rights movement of Mexican Americans in the 1960s and 1970s, which campaigned for farm workers' rights, bilingual education, political representation and pride in Mexican American identity.

The deliberate, open and non-violent breaking of a law that protesters consider unjust, with acceptance of the legal penalty.

The use of non-violent methods such as protests, boycotts, strikes and non-cooperation by ordinary people to challenge those in power, for example to remove a government, without the use of arms.

A US federal law signed on 2 July 1964 that outlawed segregation in public places such as hotels, restaurants and shops and banned discrimination in employment on grounds of race, colour, religion, sex or national origin.

A set of secret FBI operations from 1956 to 1971 that spied on, infiltrated and tried to discredit American political organisations, including civil rights and Black Power groups.

The shared sense of belonging and purpose that unites the members of a movement. Symbols, songs, colours and shared rituals help to create it.

The decision announced by the British prime minister Ramsay MacDonald in August 1932 to give separate electorates to several Indian communities, including the Depressed Classes (Dalits), which Gandhi opposed by fasting.

The ending of slavery with payments to slave owners for the loss of the people they owned, as in the British colonies in 1834; the enslaved themselves received nothing.

One of three cross-party bills of 1910–1912 that would have given the vote to a limited number of propertied women; all failed, which angered the suffrage movement.

The alliance of the ANC with Indian, Coloured, white democratic and trade union organisations in South Africa in the 1950s, which adopted the Freedom Charter in 1955.

A US civil rights organisation founded in Chicago in 1942 that used non-violent direct action. It organised the Freedom Rides of 1961.

A federation of mainly Black trade unions in South Africa founded in December 1985, which used strikes and stay-aways against apartheid and allied itself with the ANC.

The constitution of the Republic of India, in force from 26 January 1950, which introduced universal adult suffrage, guaranteed fundamental rights and abolished untouchability.

An organised campaign formed to oppose a popular movement and defend the existing order, such as the Women's National Anti-Suffrage League in Britain or the White Citizens' Councils in the American South.

A British colony ruled directly by a governor appointed from London, without an elected assembly with real power; Jamaica became one in 1866.

A term for the unelected institutions of a state, such as the army, security services, courts and bureaucracy, believed to keep power regardless of who governs; used in Egypt for the institutions that survived the 2011 revolution.

The non-violent campaign launched by the ANC and the South African Indian Congress in June 1952, in which volunteers deliberately broke apartheid laws and accepted arrest.

Protest that confronts an injustice directly, by doing what is forbidden or blocking what is objected to, instead of working only through petitions, courts or elections.

16 August 1946, when the All-India Muslim League called for protests in support of Pakistan; communal violence in Calcutta killed about 4,000 people and spread to other parts of India.

A strategy in which a ruling power weakens opposition by encouraging or exploiting divisions among the people it governs, for example by giving religious or caste groups separate representation.

The campaign launched by the Black newspaper the Pittsburgh Courier in February 1942 for victory over fascism abroad and over racism at home.

The argument, made by Dadabhai Naoroji and others from the 1870s, that British rule drained India's wealth to Britain through payments to London, salaries, pensions and profits.

A fund set up by the NUWSS in 1912 to support Labour Party candidates against Liberals at by-elections, because Labour supported votes for women and the Liberal government had let the Conciliation Bills fail.

In Egypt, the law in force almost continuously from 1981 to 2012 that allowed detention without trial, banned most demonstrations and gave the security police wide powers.

The eighteenth-century intellectual movement that judged beliefs and institutions by reason and argued for natural rights, religious toleration and limits on arbitrary power.

The British law of 2 July 1928 that gave women the vote on the same terms as men, from the age of 21.

A Protestant revival movement of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that stressed personal conversion, the authority of the Bible and a duty to reform society's sins.

President Truman's order of 26 July 1948 requiring equality of treatment and opportunity in the US armed forces, which led to their desegregation.

Indian nationalists such as Tilak, Lajpat Rai and Bipin Chandra Pal who from the 1890s demanded swaraj and supported boycotts and mass protest; the name was given by opponents.

The US law of 11 April 1968 that banned discrimination on grounds of race, religion or national origin in the sale and rental of housing.

A tactic in the US Senate of prolonging debate to prevent a vote on a bill; southern senators used it to block civil rights legislation until 1964.

Feeding a prisoner against their will, usually through a tube, as the British authorities did to hunger-striking suffragettes from 1909.

Presenting a problem in a way that names who is to blame, what should change and why ordinary people can change it, so that people see their situation as unjust and fixable.

The statement of principles adopted by the Congress of the People at Kliptown on 26 June 1955, declaring that South Africa belongs to all who live in it and demanding equal rights and a democratic state.

The Treasonable Practices Act and Seditious Meetings Act passed by Pitt's government in Britain in 1795, which widened the law of treason and restricted public meetings, aimed at radical reformers during the war with revolutionary France.

A measure of income inequality from 0 (everyone has the same income) to 1 (one person has all the income).

A British law that gave elected Indian ministers control of the provinces of British India and widened the electorate to some 30–35 million people, while keeping central power in British hands.

The belief that slavery or another injustice should be ended slowly, through step-by-step reform, rather than at once.

A sense shared by a group that it is being treated unjustly, for example denied rights, exploited, humiliated or ignored.

The South African law of 1950 that assigned separate residential and business areas to each racial group and was used to remove people by force from areas declared for whites.

A general stoppage of work and business as a form of protest, a long-standing practice in South Asia that Gandhi used on a national scale from 1919.

The series of Indian laws passed in 1955–1956 that reformed Hindu family law, giving Hindu women rights to divorce and to inherit property.

A refusal to eat as a form of protest, often by prisoners. Imprisoned suffragettes used it from 1909 to demand recognition as political prisoners.

The demand that slavery be abolished at once, without a period of gradual reform; in Britain it was argued by Elizabeth Heyrick in 1824 and adopted by the Anti-Slavery Society in 1830.

The US law that ended the system of immigration quotas based on national origin, which had favoured immigrants from northern and western Europe since 1924.

Work under a contract that binds a worker to an employer for a fixed number of years, usually in return for passage overseas, wages and housing; Indian indentured workers were sent to British plantation colonies from 1838 to 1917.

The political organisation founded in Bombay in December 1885 that led the movement for Indian self-government and independence.

A Zulu cultural and political movement revived in 1975 by Mangosuthu Buthelezi, chief minister of KwaZulu, which opposed apartheid but rejected armed struggle and sanctions, and fought a violent conflict with ANC supporters from the mid-1980s to 1994.

The killing of unarmed Indians in an enclosed ground at Amritsar on 13 April 1919 by troops under Brigadier-General Dyer: 379 dead by the official count, about 1,000 by a Congress estimate.

"Enough": the Egyptian Movement for Change of 2004–2005, a coalition of activists that protested against a fifth term for Hosni Mubarak and the succession of his son Gamal.

The campaign by Indian Muslims from 1919 to protect the Ottoman sultan as caliph after the First World War; Gandhi allied with it in the non-cooperation movement.

A political ideology stressing individual rights and freedoms, equality before the law, limited government and government by consent.

Jacquelyn Dowd Hall's term (2005) for a civil rights movement that began in the labour and left-wing politics of the 1930s and 1940s and continued beyond 1968.

The mothers of people disappeared under Argentina's military regime, who from April 1977 marched every Thursday in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires to demand news of their children.

The demonstration of about 250,000 people in Washington, D.C., on 28 August 1963 in support of civil rights legislation, at which Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech.

The campaign by white southern politicians in the United States from 1956 to block the desegregation of schools ordered by Brown v. Board of Education, through state laws, school closures and political pressure.

In South Africa, the system by which African men worked on fixed contracts in mines and cities far from home while their families stayed in the rural reserves.

The organisations and networks (churches, unions, colleges, clubs, online groups) through which a movement recruits members, raises money and coordinates action.

The early leaders of the Indian National Congress, such as Gokhale and Naoroji, who sought gradual reform and self-government through petitions and constitutional methods.

The rising of poor Black Jamaicans led by Paul Bogle in October 1865, suppressed by Governor Eyre under martial law with hundreds of killings and executions.

The federation of constitutional women's suffrage societies formed in 1897 and led by Millicent Fawcett. It used lawful methods such as petitions, lobbying and peaceful marches, and was the largest suffrage organisation in Britain.

Withdrawing the everyday cooperation on which a government depends, for example by refusing to work for it, pay its taxes, attend its schools and courts or buy goods that profit it.

The national campaign of 1920–1922 led by Gandhi and the Indian National Congress, in which Indians boycotted British courts, schools, councils, titles and cloth. Gandhi called it off after the violence at Chauri Chaura in February 1922.

The principle that a society should not be organised by race at all; in South Africa, the idea that the struggle was against apartheid as a system, not against a racial group.

The South African organisation founded in 1959 by Robert Sobukwe and others who left the ANC, arguing that Africans should lead the liberation struggle alone.

The British law of November 1918 that allowed women aged 21 and over to stand for election to the House of Commons.

Laws in South Africa that required Africans to carry documents showing where they were allowed to live and work, used to control their movement into towns.

A formal written request to a ruler, parliament or other authority, signed by its supporters. In Britain petitioning Parliament was a lawful way for people without the vote to show the strength of opinion.

The US Supreme Court ruling of 1896 that racial segregation was constitutional if the separate facilities were equal, the legal basis of Jim Crow until 1954.

The features of a political system at a given time that make collective action more or less likely to succeed, such as allies in power, divisions among elites, court rulings or a weakened ruler; Doug McAdam's term (1982).

Resistance to a movement through the institutions of power: laws, bans, arrests, courts, surveillance, censorship, propaganda, and the ability of governments and legislatures to delay or reject reform.

The agreement of 24 September 1932 between Gandhi and B. R. Ambedkar that replaced separate electorates for the Depressed Classes with 148 seats reserved for them within a joint Hindu electorate.

A sustained, organised campaign by large numbers of ordinary people to change, or to defend, the political, social or economic order, mainly through action outside the formal institutions of government.

The South African law of 1950 that classified every person by race, the foundation on which other apartheid laws were built.

Hindi for "complete self-rule": the demand for full independence from Britain adopted by the Indian National Congress in 1929 and declared on 26 January 1930.

The mass rising that followed the Indian National Congress's demand of 8 August 1942 for an immediate British withdrawal from India. The British arrested the Congress leaders and crushed the movement by force.

The killing by Egyptian security forces of at least 817 people, according to Human Rights Watch, when they broke up the sit-in of supporters of the deposed president Mohamed Morsi at Rabaa al-Adawiya Square, Cairo, on 14 August 2013.

The influence of a movement's militant or violent wing on the success of its moderate wing: positive when it makes the authorities more willing to deal with the moderates, negative when it discredits the whole movement.

A Hindu nationalist volunteer organisation founded in 1925 that promotes the idea of India as a Hindu nation.

The gap between what people believe they deserve and what they actually get; Ted Robert Gurr argued (1970) that this gap, more than absolute poverty, drives protest.

The set of protest methods, such as petitions, meetings, marches, boycotts, strikes and sit-ins, that a movement knows how to use at a given time and place. The idea comes from the sociologist Charles Tilly.

The Indian law of March 1919 that extended wartime powers to detain suspected revolutionaries without trial, provoking Gandhi's first all-India campaign.

The deliberate destruction or damage of property such as railways, power lines or government buildings, to weaken an opponent or make a political point.

Gandhi's method of non-violent resistance, meaning "truth-force" or "holding firmly to truth", in which protesters refuse to obey unjust laws and accept punishment without using violence.

The first women's rights convention in the United States, held in Seneca Falls, New York, in July 1848 and organised by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott.

An electoral system in which voters of one community, such as Muslims in British India from 1909, vote only for candidates of their own community in seats reserved for it.

The belief, strong in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain and America, that men belonged in public life, work and politics and women in the home and family, which was used to argue against votes for women.

The British law of 1919 that stated that sex or marriage should not disqualify anyone from public office or the professions, opening the law, juries and the magistracy to women.

A system in which a farmer works land owned by someone else in return for a share of the crop, common among Black families in the US South after 1865 and often leaving them in debt.

A protest in which people occupy a place, such as a segregated lunch counter, and refuse to leave until their demands are met or they are removed. The Greensboro sit-in of February 1960 started a wave across the US South.

The British law of 25 March 1807 that made it illegal for British subjects and ships to take part in the Atlantic slave trade. It did not free people who were already enslaved.

The British law of 28 August 1833 that abolished slavery in most British colonies from 1 August 1834, with £20 million compensation to slave owners and a period of unpaid apprenticeship for the freed people.

Charles Tilly's term for a sustained campaign of public claims on authorities, carried out through a repertoire of actions such as meetings, petitions and marches, and through public displays of worthiness, unity, numbers and commitment.

The committee founded in London in May 1787, mostly by Quakers, with Thomas Clarkson and Granville Sharp among its members, to campaign for an end to the British slave trade through petitions, publications and lobbying.

The Quakers, a Protestant Christian group founded in seventeenth-century England, who believed in the equal worth of every person and led the early campaign against the slave trade.

The 1772 ruling by Lord Mansfield that James Somerset, an enslaved man in England, could not be forcibly removed from the country; it was widely taken to mean that slavery could not exist in England.

A civil rights organisation of Black church leaders founded in January 1957 after the Montgomery bus boycott and led by Martin Luther King Jr. It organised non-violent campaigns such as Birmingham (1963) and Selma (1965).

A statement signed in March 1956 by 101 members of Congress from the former Confederate states, condemning the Brown v. Board of Education decision and supporting resistance to it by lawful means.

The US civil rights organisation founded by student activists in April 1960, which organised sit-ins, Freedom Rides and voter registration in the Deep South.

The British law of 1846 that began to equalise the duties on colonial and foreign sugar, ending the protection that British Caribbean sugar had enjoyed.

A South African law of 1950 that banned the Communist Party and defined communism so broadly that the government could use it against almost any opponent of apartheid, including through banning orders.

The body of senior Egyptian generals that took power when Hosni Mubarak resigned on 11 February 2011 and ruled Egypt until the election of Mohamed Morsi in June 2012.

"Self-rule": the goal of Indian nationalists, meaning self-government within the empire for some and full independence for others; Gandhi also used it for moral self-control.

Afrikaans for 'black danger': the fear, used by the National Party from its 1948 election campaign onwards, that Black majority rule would destroy white society.

The large square in central Cairo whose occupation by protesters from 25 January to 11 February 2011 was the centre of the Egyptian uprising against Hosni Mubarak.

An Egyptian campaign ('rebellion') launched in 2013 that collected signatures calling for President Mohamed Morsi to resign and organised the mass protests of 30 June 2013 that preceded the military coup.

The name given in South Africa to hidden involvement by elements of the security forces in the political violence of 1990–1994, including support for Inkatha attacks on ANC supporters.

The policy of P. W. Botha's South African government from 1978, which claimed the country faced a communist-directed 'total onslaught' and answered it with limited reforms combined with military and police repression at home and abroad.

The trial of 156 leaders of the Congress Alliance, including Nelson Mandela, arrested in December 1956 and charged with high treason; all were acquitted by March 1961.

The South African body (1996–1998) that investigated human rights violations committed between 1960 and 1994, heard victims' testimony and could grant amnesty to perpetrators who made full disclosure of political crimes.

The armed wing formed by the ANC and the South African Communist Party in 1961. It began a sabotage campaign on 16 December 1961 and later fought a guerrilla struggle from exile until 1990.

A legal alliance of several hundred South African community, church, student and union organisations formed in August 1983 to oppose apartheid and the new constitution of that year. It led rent and consumer boycotts in the mid-1980s.

The right of every adult citizen to vote, without conditions of property, income, education, sex, race or religion.

The use of physical force against a movement, such as beatings, shootings, torture, assassination and attacks by vigilantes, whether by the state or by private groups.

The Royal Navy force that patrolled the coast of West Africa from 1808 to intercept slave ships after Britain abolished its slave trade.

The planters, merchants, bankers and shipowners whose wealth came from Britain's Caribbean sugar colonies, and their allies in Parliament, who lobbied against the abolition of the slave trade and slavery.

The reaction of many white Americans against the civil rights movement and Black protest from the mid-1960s, seen in support for 'law and order' candidates and resistance to integrated housing and school busing.

A British suffrage organisation formed in 1907 by members who left the WSPU in protest at the Pankhursts' autocratic leadership; it used non-violent civil disobedience such as tax resistance and boycotting the 1911 census.

A British organisation founded in 1908, with Mary Ward among its leaders, to oppose votes for women in parliamentary elections; it merged with the men's league in 1910 to form the National League for Opposing Woman Suffrage.

The militant women's suffrage organisation founded in Manchester in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters, whose members, the suffragettes, used direct action and, from 1912, attacks on property.

Charles Tilly's shorthand for what a social movement displays in public to show its strength: worthiness, unity, numbers and commitment.

A population in which a very large share of people are young adults, usually after a period of high birth rates; it can increase pressure for jobs and political change.

The killing in 1781 of more than 130 enslaved Africans thrown overboard from the British slave ship Zong; the owners' insurance claim of 1783 made the case a scandal for abolitionists.