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Delayed Synergy: Challenging Housing Discrimination In Chicago In The Streets And In The Courts, Leonard S. Rubinowitz, Michelle Shaw

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

During the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Montgomery Improvement Association combined a boycott with a successful constitutional challenge to bus segregation laws, producing more progress to desegregate the buses than either strategy could have brought about on its own. The Montgomery Improvement Association’s approach was a paradigm of the synergy between a social movement and social change litigation.

This Article argues for opportunities for synergy between social movements and social change litigation in three ways: 1) extending the time frame; 2) joining the forces of two separate organizations to produce change, unlike the single organization in Montgomery; and 3) creating an …