Legal Scholar Gloria J. Browne-Marshall on Her Book ‘A Protest History of the United States’

Published: July 24.

Gloria J. Browne-Marshall headshot courtesy of Ernie Marshall. “A Protest History of the United States” book cover courtesy of Beacon Press.

By Susanna Granieri

In her latest book, “A Protest History of the United States,” constitutional law professor Gloria J. Browne-Marshall wrote: “To live under siege and still thrive and find joy, despite the oppressive and unnatural conditions of this country, is an immeasurable victory.”

Browne-Marshall examined the history of protest movements in the United States, including indigenous people’s rebellion to European colonization, the Civil Rights Movement, labor union uprisings, anti-war marches, women’s suffrage and more recent instances of demonstrations over violent policing and climate change.

Her book, published in April, comes at a time of increased protest activity. In its annual report, the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker described 2024 as a “protest year,” highlighting the pro-Palestinian campus encampments and demonstrations on college campuses. The distinction was also assigned to 2020 and 2021, amid the racial reckoning following the killing of George Floyd by police. But the report was released before the inauguration of President Donald Trump, whose administration has seen an increased protest presence across the country, including millions joining “No Kings” demonstrations protesting the president last month.

“The United States of America is made better when her people demand better,” she wrote. “One needs to learn about the protests that secured the liberties enjoyed daily, even as the nation fails to recognize the awful price paid to gain them.”

In an interview with First Amendment Watch, Browne-Marshall discussed the criminalization of protest despite First Amendment protections, why protesters need to find ways to maintain their message and influence public opinion, and how the media can negatively influence a protest narrative.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

FAW: We’re familiar with the protests of the last ten years, such as Black Lives Matter and #MeToo. But what does your study of American history teach us about the strategies that have been most effective in gaining attention to grievances and bringing change?

Browne-Marshall: I think there are ways in which I would say the history of strategically poised protests can shed light on the protests today that are not being considered. First, the leaders studied the opposition. They spent time trying to find the weaknesses, the strengths, examining their arguments, so that they could come up with protests that would meet the need and be able to counter the oppression that they faced. I think that’s one of those strategies that’s being missed here. I don’t see people really studying, and maybe I’m just not in the circle where the studies are taking place, where people are actually examining how this regime, in particular, or any oppression that they believe is taking place, is happening, why it’s happening. That’s the other part. What is it that these people want? The opposition, the oppression, the oppressors. What do the oppressors want? Whether or not it’s the government or it’s a business, a corporation, if they’re anti-union, what is it that the corporation has that they want to maintain that they feel is threatened by having a union? So studying these things, I think would be something that’s very important.

I think also the idea that the emotional trigger in the very beginning is something that’s important, but there’s also a need for messaging that has to sustain the movement. The protests can come, for example, with the murder of George Floyd, with the women who came forward, who had been accosted and assaulted in Hollywood. Now, how do you sustain the movement outside of the initial outrage and the outputting of emotion? I think that was very important that I saw in my research, that they had to channel that anger and that emotion, keep it alive, but also it had to be funneled in a way that was used to maintain momentum and carry a message. And I think what I would say most recently is that I see the emotion, which is important, but where’s the message? And the message has to be not just anti the oppression, but what is the group wanting? What are they for? Because this is one factor that I think is very important. If the government or corporation, a business, whatever, that is acting in a way that oppresses another group, that oppressor is looking to have a world based on their image, their ideology. So if there’s a countering ideology, we need to know what it is. We need to know what the other side of the message is. For example, today we see “No Kings.” We don’t want “King,” we want [blank], and so my message is democracy, or we have to look at the core of what’s happening right now. And I believe, through my research, that what we’re seeing taking place in our country is based on the fact that by the year 2045 this nation is going to be majority people of color. So these strategies — voter suppression, deportation, the undermining of diversity, equity and inclusion — these tactics to take away the contributions of people of color, is to lay the foundation for an apartheid type state by the time we get to 2045 so that even if the population does increase enough to make the white population be the minority population in the country, the power is still going to be in the hands of an older white male patriarchy. And so I think that if we don’t study that to figure out what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, how they’re doing it, then I think the protests then are not as effective as they could be, because the emotional part of the protest is going to get only so far, and the messaging has to be something that brings in outside people.

It has to influence the outside public, beyond those people who are protesting, and that’s why having the message is so important, so that it can influence people who are not protesting. And of course, protest takes many different forms. It’s not just the protest in the streets with the signs. There are all different types of ways to protest. And so those different mechanisms for protest can then have different ways to influence the outside viewer, and so that person can also do what they can where they stand without actually being seen on the street. So influencing public opinion is also something that the protest is supposed to do, not just get the protesters emotional, anger or thoughts out, but also influence the thoughts of others.

Demonstrators hold up signs as they march on the streets during the “No Kings Day” protest against U.S. President Donald Trump’s policies, in New York City, June 14, 2025. (Reuters/Eduardo Munoz)

FAW: As you’ve taken a deep dive into the history of protest in America, do you believe there are mainstream narratives surrounding protests that are inaccurate?

Browne-Marshall: Yes. The protesters are always seen as someone ungrateful, something that’s negative, something that is undeserving. The protester is asking for something beyond what they think that the people in positions of power to make those governmental or corporate changes believe they should have, and that protesters are threatening to the status quo. Protesters don’t understand how the systems actually work. Protesters actually are not religious and don’t believe in the system of government. That they’re anarchists. It’s always this negativity that is pasted onto protesters and people who are questioning the government or dissent from what the government or a corporation thinks they are supposed to be satisfied with having. And so a dissatisfied person is seen as a negative person, that they should just go along with whatever is being said, because the people in power know better. And then there’s this sense that they’re a threat to the society, and that makes it easier for police officers to do harm to them, for protesters to be painted in very negative ways, for the criminal justice system to play an oversized role when it comes to a protester and the propaganda around what a protester is actually wanting. There seems to always be some subversive sense of diabolical strategy that’s trying to undermine society as a whole, as opposed to the poor wanting to have better living conditions, or a worker wanting to have more money, or the money they believe they deserve for the for the job they’re doing, or women wanting the right to vote, or African Americans or other people of color being full citizens. Instead of looking at it that way, it’s looked upon as though what they want is something diabolical, so they should be crushed and being crushed is better for society, to quiet the protester, than it is to give them what it is they’re asking for.

FAW: You wrote, “Media brings the outside world to the battle because journalists can make a person who is quite consumed with their own troubles care about injustices happening to others. In large and small ways, the media can be informed and inform others about pressing issues of injustice.” How well do you think the media performs in covering protests?

Browne-Marshall: I think the media can aid in the inaccurate narratives based on who they believe their reader is. And so if the reader is someone who’s firmly situated within the status quo, and the journalist as well is uninformed about the realities of poverty, the realities of criminal injustice, or living as a person of color with unequal rights, as a woman who is the object of assault, then I think that the coloring of the story is going to be based on continuation of what the status quo in the majority society actually believes. And I don’t even like using “majority society” because the majority of society would be women, for example. But sometimes I’m concerned, especially now that we have newspapers that are obviously controlled by corporations. For example, Amazon and the relationship with the Washington Post, and the fact that laborers are trying to form a union at Amazon. So what type of coverage is going to be the journalistic form that would give the full story when you have that type of conflict of interest? And those are the obvious conflicts of interest now. Looking over the years, it’s the exceptional journalist that actually dug deeper and could report the bias, discrimination, the poverty the way it actually was, and not sugarcoat it. And that’s why those particular journalists won awards for their journalism because it was outstanding and unique, because the status quo within journalism was not doing that. If you look at the Black press, for example, for over a century you had the Black press, journalists of color, African Americans and otherwise, but in particular, African Americans, who would cover the same story. On the one hand, you would have a lynching in which the press covered it as this was what the person deserved. And on the other hand, the Black press would cover it and show that this person was railroaded, attacked and murdered. And [some of] the white press didn’t cover it as a murder. They covered it as a justifiable way in which society was to avenge itself. So we’ve seen this again again, in which the coverage in the Black press is seen as protests, but the coverage by the white press or other people in the majority press is seen as insurgency.

FAW: How has the culture surrounding protests changed amid increased restrictions on demonstrations, like those leading to student suspensions or increased police presence? Has the right to assemble evolved or eroded over the last decade?

Browne-Marshall: I think that the crushing of protesting is something that has come more so under this new regime, and the threat of it, and the idea that it’s always been the sense that a protest is something that needs to be controlled, and now the mechanisms for control are really out of hand with the calling in of the National Guard, the military, all these different actions of secret police. This is something that is unprecedented, that’s taking place in this year, but the idea of harming protesters is not new. That’s something that’s taken place over years. It comes and goes depending on the local, state and federal administrations in office at the time, but harming protesters seems to be something that many people in positions of power believe they should be free to do, despite what’s in the First Amendment. Usually people in positions of power don’t say out loud, ahead of time, that “We are going to hurt you if you protest.” But I think there’s always been this sense that those rights exist in the First Amendment, but the people in positions of power believe that they decide when a protest is necessary, and they rarely believe one is and how long it should last and if the protest is out of hand, and whether or not the message for the protest is something that they want to hear. I’ll add this other point. We know by law that the content of the message is not supposed to determine whether or not a person can protest, but that’s always been a fact as well. How dare you decide the response to protest, especially depending on what they’re protesting about, what the language is that they’re using, based on the sense of outrage and umbrage taken by people in positions of power to, then trigger the use of policing and harsh policing on the protesters. We know during the anti-Vietnam War movement, that at Kent State and in Mississippi as well, students were killed while protesting. To protest is not an easy thing. It’s done with courage. But I also think that our country has decided that despite the First Amendment, they feel that harming protesters is still something that, during George Floyd and other movements, they feel free to do and do it with impunity. There are ways in which people have been feeling the brunt end of harsh consequences because they have protested against the status quo. They wanted more out of this country. And that’s why I start my book with this conflict between the United States and America. So we have the United States of America. But the United States is an empire builder and a corporate capitalist machine, and America, as on the other side, is saying, “Give us your huddled masses yearning to be free.” So America is the side of the culture of this country that says you have First Amendment rights and freedom of speech and all of this, and then the United States is the power that says “We have the policing law and order, and we’ll crush your protest.” So this conflict is constant in this country, where on the one hand it speaks of rights and liberty and freedom of speech, and on the other it crushes people for exercising their rights and liberty and freedom of speech.