Rebellion on taxes and other violent protest in the 1780s had strongly influenced the desire of those at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 to expand democratic public expression while outlawing violent means of bringing about protest movement changes. The language of the First Amendment reflects the potential power of protest ideas. Any consideration of protest movements needs to include the effects of those, like James Madison and Thomas Jefferson in the case of the amendment language, whose articulated ideas about grievances provide a key element in active protest emergence.
While most protest movements in the United States and in other democratically based societies have been mostly peaceful, there is a stream of protests which have not been peaceful. There are many examples of protest movements with no or little violence, including the multiple women's protests for more rights and opportunities throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the food and drug protection movement in the early twentieth century; the early- and late-twentieth century environmental protest movements for cleaner air, water, and protection of endangered species and open spaces; and the protest marches of 1998 in many communities and in Washington, D.C., which resulted in new record public expenditures for cancer research at a time of budget cutbacks in most government programs.
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