Social Movements and Their Impact on Public Policy:

Social movements are different forms of action, which take place by a cohesive group of people, under one identity and a united goal. Based on their goal orientation, social movements are new agents of their milieu, and their effects are direct with changes and victory of demanded goals. The impact of social movements on public policy-making processes is direct and influential. In such regard, the present work undertakes the basic question of how new social movements devise new mechanisms to become determinants of public policy along with a thorough analysis of the theoretical discussions embedded in them. Henceforth, the effort shall dwell upon the evidence of the role played by social movements in public policy making, the Civil Rights struggle of African- Americans in the 1960s under the evolutionary Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Leadership could be studied as a case study. Settling upon the Civil Rights Movement, the work shall elucidate and elaborate the role of solidarity in action, a mastered leadership to form a new identity and drive the organization through its path with a unique framework.